At the bottom of the hill there is a traffic light. If I push the button on the pole, the light will turn red, the white “Walk” signal will light up, and I can safely cross the street in the crosswalk. This is all in theory, of course. In actual practice, I push the button on the pole, the traffic light turns red, the “Walk” signal lights up, I step into the crosswalk, and at least one, if not two, cars promptly run the red light and narrowly avoid hitting me. This is not an occasional occurrence. This happens every single time I cross this street. Every time without fail. Frequently I watch people with determined looks on their faces punch the gas as the light turns yellow then red before they have even reached the white line. I then pause in the middle of the crosswalk as the force of their passing vehicle’s speed practically knocks me over. Other times the drivers wear blissful unconcerned expressions as they sail through the red light, very nearly running over my foot or striking my knee with their front bumper. Often one hand clamps a cell phone to a fleshy cheek like some vulgar plastic appendage, as vacant eyes either fail to notice the 6 foot 2 man in the middle of the street or simply choose to ignore him. This morning once again as I reached the middle of the crosswalk, a middle-aged woman in an SUV paused uncertainly at the red light for a split second before racing forward, eyes locked ahead with a crooked half-smile hung on her porcine visage. I stood so close I could see her pores. This light basically exists to serve the pedestrians, as there is no direct cross street that the light also controls. Drivers know this and so they know that they can run this light without the possibility of striking another car, which would thus put themselves and their vehicle in danger. But when the element of personal danger to one’s own self is removed, every driver morphs into a scofflaw on the roads. And who cares about the person walking in the street? They are merely obstacles in the way. As a pedestrian in a major U.S. city, I see the worst of this behavior exhibited in humanity every day and it makes me both sick to my stomach and sick in my heart.
All posts in category human behavior
pedestrian non grata
Posted by sean on January 15, 2009
https://sd-stewart.com/2009/01/15/pedestrian-non-grata/
empty
I really don’t have much to say. I’ve been dealing with an extremely frustrating situation that has drained my energy and sapped all creativity out of me. I am like a piece of bleached driftwood, weathered and dull grey from the crashing waves. I’m weary of living in the too-close vicinity of hostile thoughtless human beings. I want my own castle, and I want to build a moat around it to keep out everyone except those who I choose to allow entrance. I am trapped and I don’t like being trapped. I feel exhausted and powerless. I just want peace and quiet. I too easily absorb the energy in my surroundings and this is a heavy burden.
In better news, the first new bird of the New Year was spotted at Patuxent River State Park on January 3rd. It was a Golden-crowned Kinglet. First spotted by my good friend AR, then ID’d by me. That takes care of the kinglets for me (there are only two). I spotted the Ruby-crowned Kinglet at Lake Roland one day back in the early fall. It landed about a foot away from me. I’m getting better at IDing birds based on their behavior. When we first spotted the bird, I immediately thought it might be a kinglet because of its size (they’re tiny) and how it was moving. They hover along branches to feed, rarely pausing at all.
Posted by sean on January 9, 2009
https://sd-stewart.com/2009/01/09/empty/
a morning
As the train approaches, a small flock of birds gathers overhead, then settles into two trees. On board, everyone is reading. I, however, am listening and looking. One woman reads Rumi. A man reads a book called Ontologies in Medicine. Two people read the Bible in languages other than English. The man in front of me works on a Sudoku puzzle. A woman toward the front begins a conversation on one of those annoying walkie-talkie phones. The man’s voice on the other end squawks abrasively into the train. The woman responds gleefully. “Hi, how are you? I am on the light rail and am broadcasting our conversation to everyone on the entire train! Isn’t that so exciting?” (Actually I can’t hear her because I am listening to Wilderness at high volume, but these are the words I enjoy putting into her mouth). The woman across from her doesn’t seem to think it’s that exciting. She begins with dirty looks each time a transmission comes through the phone. Then she rapidly advances to dirty looks and a shake of the head. After that, she looks around in frustration to see if anyone else is annoyed. Either no one else cares, or they are doing a damn good job of hiding it. The phone woman gets off at North Ave and a man and woman get on. The man is in a motorized wheelchair and is missing the lower half of his left leg. He holds a bottle of what looks like urine. Off the train at Lexington, crescendoes rushing in my ears, clouds obscuring the sun. Rain is coming. And I forgot my umbrella. I walk. Everyone is smoking. On the sidewalk a crushed tiny plastic cup erupted its contents in stages: ketchup smeared like blood, obscene on bone white concrete. Farther along are ankles so thin they could snap. A face turns with startling beauty. Inside, I am loath to pause this soundtrack, to disrupt this rhythm. But that was just the prelude.
Posted by sean on November 24, 2008
https://sd-stewart.com/2008/11/24/a-morning/
illegal dumping
This morning I tried to wrap my head around the concept of illegal dumping. Why do people dump trash illegally on the side of the road? Of course we all have things in our basement we’d like to throw out, but there are typically many different systems in place to deal with these things: bulk trash days, open hours at the landfill, private trash collection services, the free page on Craig’s List, etc. As I rode down one of the less traveled roads of my commute this morning, I came upon some city sanitation workers cleaning up a large pile of trash that had been sitting just off the shoulder for a few weeks. They were using a big dump truck and a tiny front-end loader. How many of my city tax dollars go toward this sort of thing? If you are going to take the trouble to drive to some deserted location in order to dump some trash, why not go a few miles further and take it to the dump? What I also find fascinating is that once one person dumps a few things in one spot, more items begin to appear almost instantly. An old stove is soon joined by a beat-up sofa, then a stained mattress box-spring, and so on. It’s like the first person’s criminal activity validates the next person’s. I want to interview these people and explore their reasoning. Is it that they have no problem with breaking the law, but they are considerate enough to keep all the trash in one sprawling pile as opposed to multiple piles spread out over a several-mile stretch of road? Or do they think that the trash itself has acquired squatter’s rights, and that this is now an official mini-landfill?
There are very few businesses on this road I ride on. One of them is a roofing company. Suddenly one day a pile of trash appeared next to their facility. Within a few days, the pile had grown quite high. Eventually they cleaned it up and posted a big sign proclaiming no illegal dumping, and warning that the location was under police surveillance. I was dubious about the potential of this sign to ward off dumpers, given that it was scrawled in childlike writing with blue spray paint, and that they gravely misspelled the word “surveillance.” Sure enough, recently I noticed that a discarded child’s car seat along with some other trash had appeared next to the roofing company. Soon these items welcomed a soiled mattress into their midst, and once again the pile has begun to grow.
Posted by sean on October 29, 2008
https://sd-stewart.com/2008/10/29/illegal-dumping/
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