Everything I Learned in Kindergarten Was a Big, Fat Lie!

I remember Kindergarten. The big lessons were about being safe on the street. These lessons did not involve the proper position to hold mace when attacked, or how to kick your kidnapper in the shins and scream, “NO!” as loud as a cat in a screen door.
They dealt with crossing a street safely. Mostly it meant, stop, look and if a car was moving anywhere, stay stopped. In child talk, don’t take your 64 pound body and play chicken with a 2000 pound car.
When I first started teaching, MS. Stiles would take all the Kindergarten classes out on the playground and divide them up. Some were pedestrians and some were “drivers” Instead of cars they had three wheel bikes, but they had real streets with names and stop signs and red lights and rules. You did not get extra credit for running down a classmate as they crossed the street. Nor, despite all my bribes, could you get one of these kids to jump in front of a moving trike.
Fast forward to downtown Binghamton. Pedestrians have been told they have the right of way. This apparently means don’t look and don’t hasten. The number of times someone has wandered in front of my car, totally oblivious of my existence, placing all their trust in my reactions is countless. If they knew the guy behind the wheel had the reflexes of a glacier, I wonder if they would be as quick to step into the “red zone”.
My pedestrian life is nearly as annoying. Here I am walking down Chenango Street, approaching a corner. I stop and look both ways and a car with complete right of way screeches to a halt and stares at me. I am very happy to wait and let them go, but nope, they are stopping and waiting and if there is a six car pileup because of it, they are still waving me across the street. Note - I do not have a white stick tapping the ground, nor do I have a dog in a fancy harness walking beside me. I do have a white beard and thick glasses but I can walk a mile in 13 minutes, which I bet the driver of the car can’t.
Then there is my all time favorite. Last week I came up to a corner just as a car arrived at the intersection trying to turn left onto Chenango Street. Now this can be difficult early in the morning because Chenango Street is busy. I can see he has a break in traffic, but if he waits for me he’ll be stuck for awhile, so I turn down the side street a few feet and cross behind him, freeing him to get on with his life. Far from the expected smile and thank you wave, he shoots me a dirty look accompanied by the universal sign of derision and whirls out into Chenango Street. I wonder what my Kindergarten teacher, Ms. Jennings, would say?