On Sunday, I spent a couple of hours with some other residents picking up trash in the city as part of earth day activities. It’s kind of a daunting task because there was so much more to do and it would take a month of Sundays to even make a dent in the problem. It felt good, though, minus the prickly thorns that jabbed at me and left scratches all over my arms. Those were a bitch. Afterwards I was inspired to do some raking and sweeping up of my property and pick up some trash near our corner. My tenant and her daughter were outside planting flowers at the same time, which was pleasant. We all get along quite well in our cute neighborhood. They put some of their potted plants up my side of the porch steps, which I found incredibly sweet.

A bit later on, they had gone inside and I was still sweeping, because I have a rather gargantuan sidewalk and live on a corner lot. I heard that familiar sound of plastic big wheel tires on pavement. I turned to see a small child riding a little plastic toy car that was even smaller than a big wheel, flying down our one-way street through an intersection — without stopping. The cross street is quite busy, and there are times when people fly through without obeying the stop sign. Also, this car was tiny and going incredibly fast, so it would have been easy for someone not to see it coming. This happened a few more times with a different kid on the little car each time. Then I heard my tenant around the corner chiding the children, but to no avail as a few minutes later the car came flying down the street again. My tenant came around the back to ask if I’d seen the kids. I talked about how I didn’t know what to do or if anything I would say would make a difference.

She walked back in the house and I saw the car gliding down the street towards the intersection again. I felt my mother rise up out of me as I walked to where the kids were standing to tell them to stop what they were doing right now. I was very angry and you could hear it in my voice. After I finished my spirited lecture, one of the kids said to the other, “Ok, don’t do it anymore,” and I walked away. There was a couple on the other side of the street working on their yardwork, too, and they had been watching the whole thing and hadn’t said a word, but watched as I explained how dangerous the intersection was to the kids. I could feel /see by their reaction (nodding heads) that they had agreed with me, but I was still upset that they, who were closer to the action, hadn’t said anything the first 3 or 4 times the kids came flying down the hill.

Later, Matt said that it could be a New England thing. People stay out of each other’s business. I’d like to think that I stay out of people’s business, but this kind of thing just bugs me on a human level. It doesn’t matter if they are your kids or not. You are allowed to yell at other people’s children when they are unsupervised and doing something quite dangerous. There is no law against human decency.

So I guess I’m that lady now….

Yesterday afternoon I caught the same kids darting out into traffic. I had to stop in the middle of the street so they could cross it.