The Power of Crossing Guards

Crossing-guards fascinate me.  Who are these people in the orange vests? Where did they see the job announcement? Why do they do what they do?

My second year at college I had a roommate who was a crossing guard.  Jennifer Knudsen. She was a sweet, cute girl. Totally great gig.  She met the kids at the cross-walk a couple of hours every day and made $20 an hour. She was the best crossing guard I have ever seen. Those elementary school kids loved her.

Since this time, I have had my share of eccentric...dare I say annoying crossing guards? I dare. 

Annoying.

Before I had kids in school, I watched them from afar. There was a crossing guard in Las Cruces that would blow her whistle at cars she perceived were going too fast. A whistle. At cars. With their windows rolled up. Also, sometimes her instincts for "speeders" were way off. 

Once I had kids in school the interactions have increased intensity, duration, and longevity. This has not been pleasant. There was a crossing guard at the school where Julie went to kindergarten in Albuquerque. I've only seen retired aged older men as crossing guards. No ladies where I live.

This wasn't the crossing guard who tortured me.  This man looks sweet.

Certainly no cute college girls. I dreaded the walk to and from school because the man terrorized me. I think he hated me. Or, it was how the infinite power of the crossing guard stop sign went to his head. 

First he would watch me walk to the corner of the sidewalk. He could see me coming from a long way away.  He would not venture out onto the street until I was at the corner. He usually made people wait until there was a giant group before he would stop traffic. When he decided the herd of people was big enough to require his benevolence, then he would would lecture everyone.

"Wait here until I wave you out."

He would tell us all every day, both directions. I get it. Wait.

Then, he stopped the traffic, and you had to wait until he waved you across the road. If anyone took a step before he waved, he would reprimand the stepper. Sometimes he stood there a long time before waving us out. Frequently he would hold his stop sign right in front of a driver, kind of reprimanding them for not stopping sooner on the road. If their bumper was close to the cross-walk, he would knock it with his powerful stop sign scepter.

Once I got there before he was stationed at the cross walk. I was just walking to pick up my little girl a little early.  I didn't even notice him walking up the sidewalk. He was in my peripheral vision. I crossed the street without him.  But, I heard him. I heard him yelling at me.

"You're not going to wait? Fine then." Then, he huffed at me. All huffy, like a teenage girl. 
Then, I had the nerve not even to get run over by a car, which I am sure was even more annoying.

"Sorry?" I responded as I kept walking. I really didn't mean it as a personal insult.  I was just crossing the street.  That man didn't talk to me for a month.  I am not exaggerating.  I would tell him thank you every day, and he wouldn't say a word. I had offended him to his core by not requiring his assistance crossing the street. For this I was offered the silent treatment. He eventually got over it.  Apparently, I haven't.  Who's the huffy teenage girl now?

(That question was rhetorical. And self demeaning.  Nailed it).

Last year my experience with the crossing guards was pleasant. We have this one with bright red cheeks and a big smile.  He is short, and my favorite.  We have a system together. He times it so that when he sees me coming, he already has traffic stopped and I just have keep my stride and cross the road. It is most excellent. All year, I enjoyed my crossing guard experience.

So, the beginning of this year there is this new guy at my corner.  His teeth are kind of rotten looking from chewing tobacco, I think. He is a little awkward with how he handles the foot traffic and cars. Sometimes he stops all directions of traffic at the four way stop and has pedestrians taking over the road from every which way.  My favorite red cheeked guy is still at my corner, too.  The awkward directing makes my favorite little red cheeked crossing-guard super mad.

"I will do this side.  You do that side."  I heard him yell at the rotten teethed guy on the first day of school. He waves his stop sign at the man, and his cheeks are even more red than usual. I can see the red cheeked crossing guard seething when the other man doesn't let the bus through right away and has kids walking instead.  Or when the rotten toothed man stops two directions of traffic at the same time.  It makes the red cheeked man cringe.  I can see him steaming from across the road.

The rotten toothed guy hasn't shown up for work the past couple of mornings, and a couple of afternoons, and red cheeks is on his own.  He absolutely prefers it this way. He is very efficient in his traffic directing. He thinks about the buses and how they hold up traffic.  He thinks about how fast people can walk. Red cheeks is good at his job.

"Where is the other guy." I asked yesterday on the way to school.

"Who knows.  He's a weirdo." Said red cheeks with his whistle in his mouth and his stop-sign up, powerfully holding back cars with his presence.

My little girls thought that was the funniest thing they have ever heard. "He called him a weirdo."

Weirdo was back this afternoon. He stopped traffic for people coming across my way (west), and then left us to stop traffic for the people crossing the street in the perpendicular direction (south).  Red cheeks watched him, and was shaking his head. 

I gave him a knowing nod and a slight wave, acknowledging that he is the superior crossing guard.  I know it, he knows it, and anyone who ventures through that intersection by foot or by car knows it.

Now- you know it, too.