On a recent morning I had an early appointment in Boca so I was
driving down Military Trail from Delray in that beautiful section around the Polo Club with the majestic palm trees, perfect grass and the manicured
flower beds.
The Pheasant Walk light turned red; I had to stop, so did a few
other cars. A man with white hair and a white moustache quickly moved to the median of the road; he was the school crossing guard, with
arms outstreched in his bright colored vest. The waiting group of
children started walking across the road in front of our stopped cars
pushing their small bikes.
They were young boys accompanied by a mother chaperon also with a bicycle. All boys wore a large T-shirt and those oversized shorts then in fashion that look like their father's pants with the bottom of the
legs cut off. Each was wearing a ribbed helmet and carrying his school
books in a backpack.
I was struck by the vision of that calm, uniform, ordered group of
youngsters, quietly crossing the road like ducklings going to the pond.
A few minutes before, during breakfast, I had scanned the headlines of
assassination in Mexico, fighting in the Middle East, a cataclysmic gas
explosion in New Jersey, stalled Bosnia peace, troubled Whitewaters.
I needed to clear my mind from those catastrophic events. And now here
it was, passing in front of us in those idyllic surroundings, the
quintessential vision of what life should really be all about.
The light was changing. The guard, still with his hands raised in
his bright orange gloves, nimbly side-stepped back to the curb. The
boys had crossed the perils of Military Trail and were riding down on
the bike trail. Our pack of cars took off leaving behind us that
vision of innocent youth, that vision of the world as it should be...
JMG
Boca Raton News 1995
