While covering a Pearl River County Board of Supervisors meeting several years ago, I heard one of the previous supervisors proudly state that all of the county’s roads had just been paved.

For those of you new to the area, prior to 2006 or so, there were still a number of public roads made of dirt and rock in this county.

Today, there are still some private dirt and gravel roads.

Dirt roads can be a lot of fun, but they aren’t very safe.

When I learned to drive in this county, there were still a few of them left, mostly in residential areas.

The urge to fling the rear end of your car around a corner is hard to resist while driving on loose dirt and rock.

So it’s a good thing that the local governmental body paved all of the roads they possibly could.

Sunday, I took a trip to Poplarville. Not by Interstate 59, down county roads.

As I drove down a back road I thought back to that time when dodging potholes left by rain or an overzealous driver in a four-wheel drive vehicle was a much larger task.

The thing was, this “paved” road was doing the same number on my shocks, struts and springs.

Even though all of our public roads in this county are paved, a number of them are still very bumpy.

While driving on asphalt, or riprap if you’re on a particularly less traveled path, is preferred to driving on gravel, on some of the roads in this county, it’s not much different.

The series of patches that are keeping our crumbling roads together is almost just as tough on a vehicle as driving on a dirt road.

It’s time for the supervisors to put forth more effort into repairing our roadways, or at least making the patches smoother.