Last year, in the fog of the morning hustle to get my son to school, I saw something that bolted the day clear: a seven-year-old girl lying on the side of the road, right on the corner of school property, a handful of adults clutched over her. Just before 8 AM, a drunk driver had struck her and her sister on their way to school. Thankfully, they would both recover, but the justified outrage prompted a number of questions about how to address the problem: Erect a streetlight? Add a stop sign? Bring the road down to a single lane? But in the end, the most mighty of all measures was imposed: a crossing guard.
The third is a woman who now stands at the intersection where those young girls were hit. She would have to google the word “nonsense,” so far removed is she from the notion. Every morning I smile. Nothing. I give her a wave. Stoicism. I chuckle and nod my head at the kids running through the intersection, like, “Look what these animals put us adults through, am I right?” Silent fury.
