Crosswalks

So, I live in Camelot. Unfortunately, even Camelot has streets (yes, they are all paved in gold - at least they were before this Government started stealing from everyone and anyone they could). At the end of my street, which we can call "Hilary Place", there is a cross walk. This cross walk is used often by the denizens of Hilary Place to walk the 1/4 mile into town or visit the grocery store across the street (which is a Food Emporium and one of the worst excuses for a food retailer that exists on this planet save for the hawker's stall in a bazaar in Kinshasha). This cross walk is supposed to be protected by a state law in Connecticut (for all of you who do not know this read and learn as detailed in Sec 14-300c of Chapter 249 of the Connecticut General Statutes) which requires all vehicles to yield to pedestrians at such marked crosswalks. It doesn't always happen, and so part of the reason for today's posting.

Hilary Place has some 30 odd (they are no more odd than children can be, but the families have been so fertile that I cannot keep track of how many there currently are) children under the age of 10. They can be an unruly bunch, as are most kids at this range of age (except for some of those precious, little angels raised by the type of people we all know and can point out like picking rotten fruit from a barrel). They, do not, however, typically cross out of Hilary Place without a parent, as was the case yesterday when my neighbor and her four children (stop with the birth control snickers as I have four children, too) went to walk to town. A car approached, and stopped as they crossed, but a second car pulled up behind the first and began honking its horn, actually scaring the elderly lady in the first car, setting off a chain reaction which almost left my neighbor short a few of her children.

Now, we could address the issue of the elderly woman and her panic, but we will all be old at some point (the alternative to getting old being a whole lot less pleasant to think about) and our motor skills and reaction times will dull with time like a well-used knife. She is not the antagonist in this story. The man in the second car is. The man who "honked his horn", gunned his engine and was just a general nuisance. It is this man and his behavior, or lack there of, which worth addressing, or rather more a "dressing down", but I will get to that in due course.

What I enjoyed (and there was not much) hearing, as this story was relayed, is that my neighbor approached the offending car and let him know, as is her Constistutional right, that she had an opinion of him and his behavior, as well as the place of his birth and the sire from which he came. As one would expect from such an individual, and representative of his I.Q., he responded with a lace of profanity unfit for a group of Somali pirates. My neighbor astutely took the license plate number and called the  local constabulary, which initially responded as one would expect, asking her to report to the station to file a complaint and with genuine concern. Upon arriving at the station (even Camelot needs police to handle the hordes who tresspass its borders), she was berated by a different officer who questioned her desire to make a report and the "wasting" of his precious time for such a matter as the near death of her children.

There are two best parts to this story. First, there is the part which invovles the animal in the car who was clearly in such a rush to get to his trivial and meaningless job, family or life that he could not wait the extra 30 seconds to allow children to safely cross the road. [Let me just throw out into the cosmos that if I run into this "gentleman", I will take a baseball bat to his auto, if not him, smiling as I do it]. The second part involves the local constable. I have a number of friends in our local police force and they are to (the one exception clearly mentioned here) a man the best of the best professionals. They are caring and considerate of the community which they protect. They allow me to sleep safely at night, knowing my family and I are safe. That said, my neighbor ran into the one hot shot who clearly does not understand the responsibility of  his role in the community. My guess is that after this incident and the wave of calls and complaints already lodged, and likely to follow, he will adjust his attitude (especially when it is pointed out to him that if an accident had occured the liability, let alone the tragedy, would have beeen rather significant for the town).

But let's not discuss things of a litigious nature. Let's focus on the remedy. First, as we have discussed in the past (and forgiving my occasional speeding, and thus disregard of the law, on the highway), let's understand that a crosswalk is sacrosanct. There is nowhere you need to be that is so important that you should not observe state law, and common courtesy, to stop for pedestrians at a crosswalk. I am tired of being in downtown Camelot and watching black. blue and white license plates (New Yorkers in case you did not get the less than subtle hint) blow through the two or three cross walks in our village center under the banner of ignorance, or idiocy.

If you are so busy, rushed, harried or self-important, do me a favor and stay across the border in your own land. You are not wanted and you should know that. Quite frankly we should have border patrol, or maybe even a fence as they do in Arizona. If you are a young rookie constable and some mother calls you regarding the well-being of her cubs, jump. Jump as high as you can. Smile and remember what makes our Camelot the place it is, is that we all care. We care about the town and each other, and if you don't, there is always some Hades we can ship you off to, quite happily.