The Crossing Guard

Now, I have been watching over children crossing at my corner of Temecula Parkway and Consuelo Avenue for sixteen years. Over those years, I've learned most of the children's names and most of their Parent's names.

   I wear a plastic orange vest and carry a big red and white stop sign.

   Yes, I'm the volunteer Crossing Guard for this neighborhood.

   I've seen things over the years that would make your hair stand on end. Cars swerving around the kids when I'm holding up my sign in the middle of the crosswalk. Kids running past me in front of oncoming traffic as I'm walking back to let the cars through. Emergency vehicles aiming themselves at me with sirens blaring and lights flashing, while I pick up a toddler under each arm and their parents scoot their other children across to the other side.

   It wasn't until three years ago, when I witnessed a group of kids take back their pride, their dignity, their childhood, and I believe became lifelong friends, that I am most proud to have worked these city streets.

   First I need to tell you why they all became good friends. His name is Duncan Pitts. Bully extraordinaire.

   Duncan was growing up with the fear most children, in any generation, ever experience and endure for as many years as he did in his young life without someone finding out.

   I myself judged him wrongly. Because nobody ever knew what could possibly be so bad about growing up rich in the most influential family in the city and living in the largest house in town.

   This family had money. They bought all the property along both sides of the cul-de-sac street called Loma Linda Hill, leaving all the lots empty.

   It's a pretty good size street too. It could have held eight other homes with large yards bordering those curbs, but now are the unkempt front yard of Mister Bonaparte Pitts and his wife, Abigail.

   Duncan never let anyone come near his home to find out about the daily childhood trauma he was living through. Beatings from both of his drunken parents and the constant psychological and verbal harassment by his two drop-out older sisters.

   He endured the same daily routine about his toughness and manhood by his family year after year. Never letting on how miserable his home life truly was to the rest of the world.

   So, what choice did he have but to become the most notorious bully in the city of Temecula. His anger and frustration had to be funneled somewhere. The poor boy was trying to live up to what he was being taught at home. About what it took to be a real man. Being the only male heir to the Pitts family fortune.

   Duncan, like most bullies, new how to pick his victims. It was the 8 bicycle riding freshmen of our local High School.

   It was an easy choice for the second year student. He wasn't athletic and didn't workout daily. So taking on a baseball, basketball, or a football player was a losing proposition. The wannabe gangsters in town were not a good choice either. You take on one of them and that group comes in force the next day to avenge one of their own. And why take on the loners like himself. You can never tell what kind of rage they might be hiding inside those quit mouths of theirs.

   So there rode in the eight geeky nerds onto the school grounds the first day of school. One at a time. Two gamers, two brainiacs, one otaku, and three cosplayers. All in all, seven pairs of heavily taped goggle glasses and one wearing outdated contacts. The perfect fish to fry. Three girls and five boys, not one weighing in over one hundred ten pounds.

   Duncan was even thinking about rotating the punishment he gave out to those kids so not to intimidate the same one twice in 1 week.

   It started out slow. Name calling from afar. Then the old standing in front of your victim real close so he or she could smell the onions you had on your hamburger for lunch.

   That grew into taking every last cent those kids had before the start of school. Even though he had more money then all of them put together. It just was part of the natural progression.

    Things picked up and started becoming a little frightening for the eight when their locks on their bikes were picked and they were moved to other locations on the school grounds. Sometimes, both tires were slashed and the owner would have to walk his or her bike home. Much to the delight of Duncan Pitts.

   Why didn't the kids complain to the Vice Principle you ask?

   They did. But with no eye witnesses no one dared to suspend the son of the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg. If it wasn't for last year's charitable contribution from Bonaparte Pitts, the football team, the mascot, and the cheerleaders would still be riding to away games in the yellow county school bus instead of the brand new wi-fi, multiple TV, air conditioned luxury bus.

   It was just a couple of kids anyways. Why upset a good thing? Their parents never even contributed to the annual bake sale.

   Then one of the brainiacs, a math genius, saw a pattern in her harassment. One week she was victimized on a Monday. Then she wasn't bullied until Wednesday of the following week. Friday the next week after that. Skip a week, then get hit on a Tuesday. Then Thursday a week later. And finally, back to Monday.

   That meant, either Duncan, was being nice to her during those other days by not bullying her, or she was one of eight kids being victimized.

    The first day back from the Thanksgiving break, Shirley the math wiz, waited for Duncan to drive his brand new Mini Cooper to school. She waited for him in the park, kitty corner from the cross walk I work.

   I could see her metal handlebar basket and the top of the front tire, with the pink side walls, sticking out in front of the dual plastic yellow slide across the street from me. The large slide did hide Shirley and the rest of her bike though.

   Why was she there? I was thinking. By this time of the morning she usually was the first one at school. Trying to beat the bully before he arrived. It was still fifty-five minutes before the bell rang and if she didn't hurry she wouldn't be able to reach the safety of the school building and her first period class.

   Then everyone could hear the black and white trimmed Mini Cooper come skidding through a stop sign a block away. Turning right at the corner of Loma Linda Hill and Temecula Parkway, heading our way.

   Luckily I wasn't holding up my sign in the middle of the cross walk because of no children to protect or I would have had to report his license plate number to authorities since he was traveling at least 10 miles per hour over the speed limit.

   The car zoomed past me and from the corner of my eye I saw Shirley take off from behind the plastic slide pedaling as fast as she could. She was chasing after Duncan Pitts as he drove his car to school.

    This went on every day for two weeks, only missing Wednesday on the first week, Friday the second week.

   Shirley met with each bicycle riding victimized nerd to set up a meeting on the Friday, 1 week before the Christmas break. She only had five days to convince the other seven that she could come up with a viable plan that would stop them from being bullied after the 2 week break.

To Be Continued...

I wrote this on my cellphone, that is the reason for the format and the green coloring. 

This is,

I Thought About Being A Crossing Guard Once

But I Couldn't Make The Commitment Of Being There Everyday

Jim Hauenstein,

“Help someone, you earn a friend.”
- Erol Ozan - 

That is my story and I am sticking to it! 

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Sign up as a Follower,
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or a Suggestion,
and I will answer you in a Post.

Thanks for reading.

The New Uber & Lyft Drivers Of The Future

Okay,

Okay.

So you think you live in a

Rat Race.

Check these drivers out.

The

Scientists

who conducted this study say,

while these guys are driving,

their stress levels go down!

Didn't we learn this type of behavior learning from

Pavlov's Dog?

Not the driving part,

but training animal behavior.

This is,

My Wife

And Kids Train Me In The Same Fashion,

Jim Hauenstein,

And,

“If canines can be conditioned to salivate over nonexistent food, may not men one day be likewise taught to salivate at the prospect of nonexistent facts?”
- Nicholas Meyer -

That is my story and I am sticking to it! 

Like what you are reading? 
Sign up as a Follower,
or Set up my Blog
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on your Web-browser,
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or a Suggestion,
and I will answer you in a Post.

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Pacific Garbage Patch

Do you like telling stories? Are you interested in writing? Come on and join me in a collaboration of writing the Fiction story,

"The Experiment."

*****

This is,

Trying To Give Up Plastic Bottles

Jim Hauenstein,

And,

“Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.”
- Jacques-Yves Cousteau - 

That is my story and I am sticking to it! 

Like what you are reading? 
Sign up as a Follower,
or Set up my Blog
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on your Web-browser,
or Leave a Comment,
or a Suggestion,
and I will answer you in a Post.

Thanks for reading.

For Your Reading Pleasure

Do you like telling stories? Are you interested in writing? Come on and join me in a collaboration of writing the Fiction story,

"The Experiment."

*****

I want to thank Mahnoorburi for his Comment, "Nice", on my Post called

Still Whining About American Football 

from January of this year.

*****

I was planning on writing a wonderful interesting Post today, but I have one of my Grandsons here at my home visiting me, I woke up and found I had a flat tire on 1 of my cars, and my favorite American Football Team is playing at 1pm Pacific time.
The Green Bay Packers.
So, for your reading pleasure, my Post from November 4th 2016 called
The Names Have Been Changed To Protect My Innocence

*****

In life,

sincerity is everything.

If you can fake that,

you've got it made!

When I first met my wife

and we were getting intimate on one glories sexy night,

she kept screaming out the name,

"Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris!"

Well,

my ego was pretty large right about then.

She was comparing me to

Chuck Norris,
I thought.

Later,

after we were cuddling,

I asked her about it.

She made a face,

looking like she was disgusted,

and told me,

"I was asking Chuck to save me from this horrible fate!"

I saw my blonde neighbor standing outside her house the other day,

with her hands tightly over her ears,

so I asked her why?

She told me she was trying to hold on to a thought!

You know,

living next to

Lake Michigan

back in the day,

I used to be a

Lifeguard.

Until some blue kid got me fired!

I went to a

Strip Club

the other night

and the dancers there had the worst

Stripper Names.

They were

Edna,

Bertha,

Gertrude,

and

Walter!

I’m on that new diet where you eat vegetables

and drink wine with every meal.

I lost 10 pounds

and my driver’s license!

This is,

Non Of These Stories Are True,

And The Names Have Been Changed To Protect My Innocence,

Jim Hauenstein,

And,

“I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally. ”
- W.C. Fields -

That is my story and I am sticking to it! 

Like what you are reading? 
Sign up as a Follower,
or Set up my Blog
as your Homepage
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or a Suggestion,
and I will answer you in a Post.

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My Son's Great Grandfather Was A Politician

Do you like telling stories? Are you interested in writing? Come on and join me in a collaboration of writing the Fiction story,

"The Experiment."

 *****
 I know it is
Friday
today but I wrote this story on
Wodens-Day
in
2016.
Since an election is a year away for all
United States Citizens
I think my essay is as appropriate today as it was back then.
It was written for
High School Students
but it is an important lesson for all.
Originally called
I Really Like The Part Where I Say


*****
Since I am of mostly

German
descent,

with a lot of

Irish

 and

French Canadian

 blood to boot,

Wednesday,

in my opinion,

is in honor of

Woden.

Or the

Day Of Odin.

Normally,

I like to

Rant and Rave

on

Wodens-Day,

about all the injustices I see in this

World.

Or,

I perceive them to be injustices.

I know it's all a matter of whose

Point-Of-View

you are talking about.

That is why I am trying my hardest to stay away from ranting every week about the up coming election.

So what do I rant about?

I know.

My youngest son!

He asked me to write a speech for him,

for

English Class.

I know what you are thinking,

so what,

I always had my

High School Sweetheart

do my homework for me

and look how I turned out.

Wait,

maybe that's a bad example.

To make a short story longer,

I wrote this speech for him;

I would like to talk to you today about, why, as High School students, we should be interested in the up-coming elections. Everyone here knows who the Presidential Candidates are. When the time comes, we will be able to vote on the next Presidential Race and then we will have a say on who will become President. But today, there is a lack of enthusiasm in this November 8th election, because most of the people who are able to vote, don’t like either candidate. It is said that a lot of the younger voters, 18 through 29 years of age, might not even vote this year. This would be a terrible mistake. There is a lot more at stake than electing the President. The voters of California have to vote for one of the two Senators who represent our state in Washington. Here, in the 50^th Congressional District, they are voting for a House of Representative, Members of the State Assembly, County Supervisor, and City Council Members. There are 18 Measures on this year’s ballot and some of them will affect us immediately. For some of you, it will be Measure 56, which will increase the price you pay for cigarettes. For all of us, it will be Measure S which increases the Sales Tax in Temecula from 8 percent to 9 percent. According to an article by Paul Jacobs in the Valley News, on October 29^th, 2016, Measure S is not to support Firefighters and other Emergency Services, and I quote, “the big lie is that Measure S is a general tax that can be spent however the city council members desire. Not a penny is dedicated for emergency services. Temecula’s projected shortfall is a few million dollars in a few years only if nothing is done to curb spending. Measure S is an obscene money grab from one of the richest cities in the Inland Empire. The irony of city leaders sitting in their luxurious $70-million-dollar Civic Center are perplexed by projected budget shortfalls, is priceless.” Which means, we will pay a little bit more for everything we buy, because Measure S will give the City Council Members a way out of their projected budget shortfalls. Now if you are one of those people who already think, “My one vote will not count,” you would be wrong. Especially in voting for State, County, and City Officials. Or on voting for the many Measures that are on the Ballot every two to four years and on local Tax increases. My Great Grandfather was a local Politician in the city where my Dad grew up. The very first time he ran for public office, my Grandmother and Grandfather were so sure he was going to win, they didn’t bother to vote. When the election results came in, my Great Grandfather lost by one vote. If my Grandparents had voted, he would have won by one vote. Voting is a privilege you get when you become eighteen years old. It is an important privilege that we should all use wisely. Thank you.

He didn't like it,

so wrote his own.

See,

I was helping him,

to do his own

Homework 

anyways!

This is,

I Really Like The Part Where I Tell High School Students,

"There are 18 Measures on this year’s ballot and some of them will affect us immediately. For some of you, it will be Measure 56, which will increase the price you pay for cigarettes."

Jim Hauenstein,

And,

“Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either. ” - Gore Vidal -

That is my story and I am sticking to it!

Like what you are reading?

Sign up as a Follower,

or Set up my Blog

as your Homepage

on your Web-browser,

or Leave a Comment,

or a Suggestion,

and I will answer you in a Post.

Thanks for reading.