So there I was, just sort of toodling around downtown Fayetteville, no particular destination in mind, sipping from a cup of Joe, when I decided that one block of town wasn’t enough for my personal ambitions.

I needed to cross the street, to traverse the ocean of traffic.

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I walked up to the crosswalk – though yes, I have been known to jaywalk a time or two thousand in my life – and waited until the car approaching came to a complete halt. It did so, and I began my journey to the next block, to see where adventure might take me.

I had barely taken three steps when the car – which had already stopped, as I said – began moving again, and abruptly lurched to a stop. Looking up, I saw the irritated driver, glaring at me, one hand on the wheel, the other clutching his cell phone.

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He was, you see, taking advantage of his Constitutional Right to make a phone call anywhere in America he wanted, and the crosswalk just happened to be the place he was on the phone at the moment.

And, as we all know, since many drivers just consider crosswalks to be adisory, rather than the law, well, no harm, no foul, especially as he hadn’t actually hit me, and I hadn’t actually messed up his grill with blood, bone and other other yucky stuff . . .

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I think we both learned an important lesson that day.

I learned that just because a driver has come to a complete stop at a crosswalk, it doesn’t mean that their brain is in gear, and he learned . . .

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. . . well, I’m not sure he learned anything, actually.

******

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Quote of the Day

That’s what we’re missing. We’re missing argument. We’re missing debate. We’re missing colloquy. We’re missing all sorts of things. Instead, we’re accepting. – Studs Terkel

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rsdrake@cox.net

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