Meet (no doubt reluctant) conservative hero Richard Ankrom.

I write that, knowing full well that the odds that an artist in Los Angeles would ever define him or herself as a political conservative are somewhere on that special spectrum between ‘fat’ and ‘slim.’ Nonetheless:

Guy modifies sign to clarify how to get from the 110 to the 5 North, does such a good job CalTrans leaves it up. http://t.co/ExYa2lUeJs

— Neil Stevens (@presjpolk) February 12, 2015

Details here. Essentially, Richard Ankrom saw a problem (no Interstate shield for a highway exit) and (I assume) sensibly assumed right off the bat that Caltrans would get around to fixing it ten years after his death. So he instead meticulously – meticulously – created an appropriate shield  that perfectly matched Caltrans standards, and went and installed it himself.  Mind you, this was for one of the big highway exit signs, which meant that Mr. Ankrom had to climb a catwalk and put it up: not insanely dangerous, but not risk-free. And then he just walked away. Somebody blabbed months later, but that’s not Mr. Ankrom’s fault.  The best part? Caltrans shrugged and left it up.  They replaced it, a decade later, as part of their routine maintenance.

FLAWLESS VICTORY.

But it’s OK.  You can do a Heroically Conservative action while not actually being one. I salute the uncritical willingness of Richard Ankrom to fix a problem himself without waiting for the government to get around to doing it.  After all: it worked, didn’t it?

Moe Lane

PS: Watch that video at the link.  Richard Ankrom really wanted to get that sign up there.