Urchin Report

I was driving to work Monday from very far away. That's because I was driving to work from a body shop that had finally granted me a loaner car, fifteen days after I was hit by a vehicle that came shooting out from a parking lot. December 26th that was, and since that day my life has been a muddle of inconvenience, phone tag, and more than a few miles of walking.

But that is, as they say, a whole 'nother story.

Nay, the rant this morning comes from the Greater Milwaukee Area; Greenfield Avenue to be specific, 7:50 a.m.. For it was there that the school bus stopped right on the Avenue, bringing to a halt all traffic in both directions, for it is law in Wisconsin that when the bus' red lights flash and it swings out its cute little octagonal stop sign that no motorist may pass the bus from any direction for fear of smooshing an incautious child. Fair enough.

Only as I came to a stop and started looking around, there were no children. There was a house on the right. There was a house on the left. Where were the children? Five seconds pass. Ten seconds. Surely the school bus stopped to pick up children, yes?

After a protracted interval, a small boy emerged from one of the house garages, jogging the length of his driveway toward the school bus. By this time ten cars were piled up both east and westbound, waiting. And as the child slowly lumbered toward the bus, he glanced backward. And I thought, "aw jeez..." For the backward glance could only mean that, yes, the even younger (and slower) sibling was now emerging from the garage. Criminy. From the time that bus stopped to when traffic was permitted to move again was no less than forty five seconds, and was probably closer to a minute when you consider that I didn't start timekeeping right away.

So what is to be my cantankerous, heartless, geezer-like "point" here? Mainly that, things sure as heck weren't like this when I was a lad! Nobody's at the bus stop when the school bus comes through? The bus keeps right on going! Lumping it two miles to school a few times teaches you something about punctuality. Furthermore, that bus this morning was pulled right up to the end of these kids' driveway. Door-to-door service! In our day, we got to mill about on some arbitrary road shoulder (nope, no sidewalks). Those kids this morning have the day to day convenience of only having to make it to the end of their driveway to patiently wait for the bus, but even that was too much to ask. Instead, two dozen commuters had to wait for them. Fifteen man-minutes of time lost unnnecessarily. Fifteen extra automobile-minutes of idling, for what? So two pre-teen children don't have to spend five minutes of their time waiting for the bus. Does this seem like an intelligent tradeoff to you?

And is it really the kids' fault at that age? Of course not. It's the coddling parents and bus driver who won't impose a higher standard. And the kids pay for it later when they find out they're soft.

Is there a hypertext markup key for "end of rant?" Bracket-slash-'eor'-bracket.