I’m a walker. I walk everywhere. I walk to the grocery store, pharmacy, doctor and dentist appointments, and everywhere else I can. It’s a blessing.
However, I used to be able to walk around, admire all of nature’s bounties, or get lost in a daydream. Now, I feel like I’m under attack from all sides. “Everyone just stay away from me, I know somebody who knows karate.”
Walkers’ biggest archenemies are drivers. The organization that tracks pedestrian deaths in the United States estimates that more than 7,500 pedestrians were killed by drivers last year, the highest since 1981.
“Jim, you’re not going to pick up lunch until you’ve put your affairs in order. Please go tell your children you love them for one last time.”
Just a friendly reminder: You’re never allowed to run over someone with your car. You’re never in the right. Just because a person might not be exactly within the boundaries of the crosswalk, does not mean you have the right to mow them down.
And please, if you collide with someone ambulatory while in your car and catastrophe is the result, you do not get to stand over the body and scream for all to hear that your life is over.
You’ll never see a happier pedestrian than during holidays or events where local streets are closed off to traffic and people are allowed to roam freely to shop, eat and commune. Once, during a Sox Championship celebration in Boston, my cousin enjoyed this freedom so much that he laid down in the middle of the road and made a snow angel. Tragically, he was subsequently run over by a sausage cart.
There’s a business along my daily route that puts a wooden sandwich sign on their sidewalk to warn, “Beware of Falling Ice.” Thanks for the advice. How exactly do you want me to beware? Look up while I’m walking? It’s a two-story building. If a huge icicle has begun its dastardly descent, how do I get out of its way in time? Essentially, all I’ve done is given it my left eye as the perfect target.
I’ve always raked leaves. At no time in my life did I ever rake leaves and consequently blind the person unwittingly strolling by. Can everyone who uses a leaf blower say the same? I’m still trying to remove a piece of dead leaf that lodged in my tear duct sometime during the Carter administration. Can’t the person stop blowing leaves so I can pass?
“Hello. Hi. I’m waving. He doesn’t see me. Oh no, now I’m caught in the eye of a swirling leaf cyclone. Auntie Em! Auntie Em! Stay calm. Stop, drop and roll just like Dick Van Dyke taught you. Dick, great advice. Now, I’m stuck under a car.”
You know, it’s not a rite of passage to be able to walk beside each other on a sidewalk. Sometimes you have to walk single file to give people going the opposite way room to pass. I feel like a second-grade school teacher writing that last sentence. If you and your sidekick take up the entire sidewalk, how am I supposed to avoid you, repel up the building like Spiderman?
How many times have people charged right through you with their head down buried in their phone? For many years, I would say heads up and the person would look up. This no longer works to penetrate their metaverse. Now, I carry a leaf blower and turn it on them.
Newest on my list of sidewalk adversaries are bicycles and motor scooters, or more specifically, those who operate them on a pedestrian sidewalk.
Is there anything more emasculating than a grown man riding his bike on a sidewalk? Seriously? Do you not see the BIKE lane directly to your right? What’s next, should we just let people drive their cars in the bike lane? Oh wait, they’re already doing that.
A valid complaint of many drivers are jaywalkers. Jaywalking is illegal in the state of Massachusetts and you can receive a ticket and a fine for the offense. Fines for jaywalking are $1 for your first, second and third offenses in a year. Fourth and subsequent offenses are $2. Proving that proper punishment can deter future crimes.
Did you know you’re supposed to walk on the right side of the sidewalk, same as driving on a road? It’s true. Will you start walking on the right side moving forward? Awesome. While you’re at it, how about driving on the right side, too? Thanks, you’re the best!
Solicitors asking for donations for phony charities are more prevalent than ever on sidewalk corners, each day purportedly representing some new group with the word children or whales in it. You can say no to them only to get harassed by them again and again each time you cross their paths. My uncle had the same experience with each of his ex-wives.
No matter how difficult walking around town has become, I still hit the pavement on a daily basis. I’ll continue to miss the good old days when all I had to worry about was an uneven sidewalk, black ice, or a falling branch.
Scott’s two books, “The World According to Scott!” and “World According to Scott! The Sequel!” are available on Amazon and Kindle. Scott’s a Methuen native and can be reached at kermanscott@gmail.com