So Mcmillian and the boys jumped on a jet and landed in Oxford<\/strong> Town, where \u2013 unbelievably unnoticed \u2013 John, Ringo, Paul, and George got ready to stroll from Faulkner\u2019s Alley<\/strong> across Van Buren<\/strong> while Mcmillian shot the pics from The Balcony. On the first take disaster struck.<\/span><\/p>\n Paul day-tripped on a crack in the pavement and face-planted in the middle of the street. He broke his nose, knocked out a couple of front teeth, and got a horrendous friction burn on the left side of his face that made him look like Batman<\/strong>\u2019s next nemesis, Hamburger Face.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat the hell were you thinkin\u2019, Paul?\u201d said John. \u201cAnd where are your bloody shoes?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI dunno, Johnny. I was just walkin\u2019 and my toe hit this crack in the street. My shoes flew off and the next thing I knew I was lyin\u2019 in the middle of the road spittin\u2019 out asphalt.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Ringo quipped, \u201cI guess you\u2019re not the cute Beatle anymore, are you, Pauli?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n George scolded, \u201cIf you\u2019d been in step with us this wouldn\u2019t have happened. Always marchin\u2019 to the beat of a different drummer, aren\u2019t you, Lefty?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Paul paused somewhere between pissed-off and pissed-on. He wished he had wings to whisk him away at that embarrassing moment. Macmillian stepped in. \u201cC\u2019mon, boys. We\u2019ve barely enough time to make it back to jolly ole England<\/strong> and finish this shoot on time.\u201d So they packed it in and rushed home.<\/span><\/p>\n The still shoeless Paul wasn\u2019t in step with the other Beatles, not because he was dead as the conspiracy theorists would later say, but because he was high on the painkillers he\u2019d taken to keep his face from hurting. \u00a0He could barely stand, much less march in step with his buds. With only had a sliver of daylight left, Mcmillian took the iconic Abbey Road photo and the rest, as they say, is history.<\/span><\/p>\n No one ever found Paul\u2019s shoes. Legend has it that at midnight every August 7 the ghost of William Faulkner<\/strong> wears them and walks through Faulkner\u2019s Alley to the middle of the Van Buren crosswalk where he trips and Vanishes.<\/span><\/p>\n Nothing much has changed with the Van Buren crosswalk since then. Thousands of people cross the street there regularly, and an inordinate number of them take the Paul-fall, face first, onto the asphalt. Some, like coeds in stilettos and platform shoes, bear some of the blame, but it\u2019s mostly the crosswalk\u2019s <\/span><\/p>\n Unlike the handicapped-accessible curb on the south end of the crosswalk, the north end is not clearly defined. Both the curb and the street drop off into a slight ravine. When you step down the slope you don\u2019t expect to go right back up, but that\u2019s exactly what happens. The forward motion of your foot suddenly ceases and the momentum of your body carries you lurching <\/span><\/p>\n Two other obstacles \u2013 the manhole (person hole?) and the water access covers \u2013 protrude just enough to catch the edge of your shoe. Halfway into the crosswalk the pavement rises \u2013 it is, after all, a crowned street. But this crown is cracked. No kidding. There\u2019s a big crack running east and west slap dab in the middle of the crown. It\u2019s big enough for a spiked heel (a shoe heel, not a drunken frat boy with bad manners) to fit in, ergo, another chance to trip the asphalt fantastic. Still heading south, the asphalt sinks. You think your foot is going to stop its descent, but it goes another inch or two downward, throwing you off kilter.<\/span><\/p>\n If face-planting ever gets to be an Olympic sport the event will be held at the corner of Van Buren and Courthouse Square<\/strong>. God be with the blokes who try to cross the street <\/span><\/p>\n Pratfalls in slapstick comedy are funny because no one\u2019s injured. People who fall in the Van Buren crosswalk get hurt. I\u2019ve seen the elderly bite the asphalt there more times than I care to remember. Once or twice EMT\u2019s had to be called to tend to their wounds. The sober young fall there, too.<\/span><\/p>\n The Van Buren crosswalk at Faulkner\u2019s Alley is a safety hazard first, and a lawsuit waiting to happen, second. Make Oxford safe again. Fix it!<\/span><\/p>\n And while you\u2019re at it, fix the one-way sign at that corner, too. For weeks it\u2019s pointed the wrong way. A few cups of concrete in the PVC pipe the sign\u2019s stuck in should do it. Melissa Swetland<\/strong>\u2019s tired of going down from The Balcony to straighten it out. However, those of us who watch her do it are highly entertained.<\/span><\/p>\n
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