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Codger and Cur II were walking along West Neck Road the other day when they came face to face with a young woman powering toward them. Cur II took an excessive interest in her, which she handled coolly, leading to polite chit-chat.
Then Codger cleared his throat and said, “You know, it’s none of my business, but you might be safer facing traffic.”
She looked slightly baffled. “Why? I like to switch back and forth.”
“Maybe it’s just me,” said Codger, inspired by her niceness to stretch for civility, “but I just don’t trust drivers to always be watching out for me.”
She smiled, nodded, and they all continued moving forward. Codger glanced over his shoulder to see that she had crossed the road and was facing traffic.
“Nicely done,” said Cur II, soundlessly.
Codger thought so, too. For years, he has tried to correct walking patterns with mixed responses, from grateful thanks from people pushing baby carriages to sour looks and the occasional rude and impossible suggestion from middle-aged men. Back in the day of
Cur, the smallish cocker-sapien, people walking big dogs toward them just sneered their way past. Cur II is a big dog and people walking dogs tend to veer out of his way.
Crone thinks that Codger’s obsession, and it may be that, with advising people to walk facing traffic, is a moral over-reach and ultimately none of his business.
Codger admits that she, as usual, may be right. But walking with your back to traffic, whether or not you are wearing headphones, texting or holding hands with your sweetie, is more dangerous now with the seasonal mix of thundering construction trucks, returning elderly snowbirds peering over their steering wheels, families of beach bunnies in Land Rovers and short-tem renters in Jeeps racing to the Osprey happy hour.
Codger could find no local laws concerning pedestrians walking with or against traffic.
The pleasant and sympathetic police officer who answered Codger’s inquiry on the subject agreed it was mostly about common sense. He said he, too, often suggested that people face traffic and received the same range of responses as did Codger.
So Codger wonders if walking with your back to traffic is more than simply being careless or establishing a constitutional right to walk wherever and however you please. Perhaps there are just some people who don’t want to face oncoming traffic, to take responsibility for what’s ahead.
There are even towns like that.
Shelter Island seems to qualify, having so often missed the opportunity to show the courage and vision necessary for coherent long-term planning around deer, ticks, water use and quality, environmental protections and the sparseness of medical services.
Bringing this up so often should make Codger feel like a nag, but there is nothing as reassuring as self-righteousness. On the Fourth of July, he and Cur II, walking along a nasty curve on West Neck Road, came face-to-face-to-face-to-face with four women spread across the road, seeming oblivious to traffic creeping around them. He suggested they might be safer facing traffic. Their sarcastic “Thank you” chorus sounded like a rude and impossible suggestion.
“Don’t get angry,” said Cur II, soundlessly. “They’re humans.”
That defense is a good one. Codger has tried to keep it in mind during short-term political dust-ups, especially after the current supervisor, Gary Gerth, pulled a fast one. After strongly advocating for changes in the law to help would-be renters facing financial hardship — a seeming indication that he would vote for the amended law — he voted against it at the tail end of a public hearing.
Most of the crowd had left; the other four members of the board had already voted for it.
That was a surprise all right, and gave Codger pause. Suddenly, he saw a pol with an election looming who was willing to hang out his board to dry. Now, that is looking up the road for incoming. Gerth won by a narrow margin last time, and this election could be close.
That June surprise made Codger wonder if Gerth had an October surprise up his sleeve. Gerth recently offered support of what he termed a “groundswell” for keeping the popular Dr. Peter Kelt on the island after 37 years of service despite having been rejected by both NYU-Winthrop, his current employer, and Stony Brook, which has been trying to establish a foothold here.
Gerth might have some negotiating chips since Stony Brook would want to use the town-controlled medical offices, as well as establish a telemedicine outpost, a key to specialist referrals and insurance revenue.
If Gerth could take credit for an October surprise, such as tucking Dr. Kelt into a Stony Brook deal, it just might pay off in November.
That’s facing traffic.
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