For many kids out there, school starts back next week. Some are looking forward to it, others are dreading it. But there once was a blonde-headed boy, a long, long time ago who had been looking forward to this day for years.
Walking through the woods early in the morning to an old familiar elementary school not so far away called Mt. Olive, the boy was so excited his walk soon quickened. While leap-frogging his way across large steppingstones lying in the shallow trickling waters of Cripple Creek, a stone shifted causing his right shoe to slip and fill with water. Upon climbing the creek’s embankment and seeing the school, his walk turned into a run through the rest of the clearing. His water-filled shoe made a squishing sound with each right step: step, squish, step, squish, step, squish.
This was the very first day of school for the seventh grader — the day he’d been working so hard for since he sat third row over from the door, third seat back from the front of the room of Old Ms. Crabtree’s third grade class. Arriving first to his assigned classroom, he placed his bookbag on his desk and unzipped the front flap.
He retrieved the white sash and placed it over his shoulder then tightened the waist strap, adjusted the large silver badge, picked up a street stop sign, and quickly walked down the halls and through the front door to his post outside. It’s now official. He was the newest member.
The Safety Patrol
Only seventh graders who have had straight A’s in conduct since the start of third grade were selected to be members of the Safety Patrol. The elite group of students were charged with the safety of all students in the morning and afternoon, as they enter and leave the school zone outside, and while walking the hallways inside making sure they obey the rules.
The boy carried the heaviness of that responsibility with a steel determination that none would be hurt on his watch. With the sign gripped in one hand, he quickly made his way to the assigned post.
The crosswalks
The most important posts were the two crosswalks located on the main road running in front of the school. His Safety Patrol post was one of them.
For the last two weeks of summer break, with help from his friends who lived on Flamingo, he’d practiced the newly assigned duties. The neighborhood kids stood on the sidewalk, waiting for the signal from him that it was safe to cross.
The boy stood in the middle of Flamingo holding up the short pole his sign was attached to. The mock sign was a replica of the one he would receive once school started. Both sides of the octangular sign were painted red with the word STOP printed in large capital black letters.
For hours he practiced holding up the sign, stopping cars and then waving for his “students” to cross. He didn’t take the safety of the students lightly and, after two weeks of practicing, was convinced he was ready for his post.
Stop!
With a keen eye, the boy watched as a small group of kindergarteners gathered on the far side of his crosswalk. This was the moment he’d been working towards for the last four years. The responsibility for their safety lay solely upon him.
Taking a deep breath, the boy held up his sign and fearlessly stepped out into traffic. For the next year, he alternated from crosswalk duty to hall monitor. Helping kids be safe indoors was as important as keeping them safe outdoors. If asked, he would say that was the year that help shape the rest of his life.
The feeling
Though Safety Patrol only lasted one year, there was something about helping others and keeping them safe that stuck with the boy. The feeling he received from putting on the white belt and silver badge and being part of something bigger than himself was truly special.
Ten years later
During the summer of his second year of college, the boy came upon a horrific car accident. A driver didn’t stop at a stop sign. A stop sign placed at a crosswalk. A crosswalk in front of an elementary school.
Less than a month after the incident, his roommate was involved in a car crash with a drunk driver and spent three months in the hospital with only a seventy-five percent chance of surviving. After many operations, the roommate did survive, left college, and went back home.
The roommate was his twin brother.
The boy also left. He dropped out of college and moved back home in search of answers – he found them by joining the local fire department.
Donning the blue uniform, and attaching the silver badge to his shirt that first day, gave him the same feeling as it did the first day of Safety Patrol back in the seventh grade. For the next twenty-eight years, the boy did his best to help the public, trying to make a difference one life at a time.
Spending countless hours in local elementary schools, the boy taught the kids about injury prevention and how to wear bike helmets, and seat belts properly – all in an effort to keep them safe. And while at the middle schools, he also did something else.
Each time he saw someone standing their post as a Safety Patrol, he thought back to that very first day of seventh grade at an old familiar Elementary School not so far away called Mt. Olive.
And he smiled.
[Rick Ryckeley has been writing stories weekly in The Citizen since 2001.]
