Both Sides of the Fence

A Tosa resident since 1991, Christine walks the dog, cooks but avoids housework, writes and reads, and enjoys the company of friends and strangers. Her job takes her around the state, learning about people's health. A Quaker (no, they don't wear blue hats or sell oatmeal or motor oil), she has been known to stand on both sides of the political and philosophic fence at the same time, which is very uncomfortable when you think about it. She writes about pretty much whatever stops in to visit her busy mind at the moment. One reader described her as "incredibly opinionated but not judgmental." That sounds like a good thing to strive for!

The sound of the cuckoo

Walker recall election, audible crossing signals, Cadillac XTS, safe crossings, Wauwatosa village, cuckoos

I love the audible signals at traffic lights in Wauwatosa's village. You'll be scurrying about, head and eyes down, in search of olive oil or noodles or a screw driver, and a chirp or cuckoo startles you into taking a closer look at where you are right now, this second.

The audible signals have something to do with accommodating residents of the Badger Home for the Blind on Hawley Road. My lazy research hints that Tosa must have been on the cutting edge of using signals that work for for the blind as well as for the seeing. But chirping signals are rare enough that I still feel delight when I hear them.

We're most of us so distracted that our surroundings need to get radical to make us notice them. Eyes and ears being occupied elsewhere, our butts now get danger warning jiggles in Cadillac's new XTS. (I will resist the obvious jokes about the link between vibrations and XTS-C, hard though that may be. . .)

Today I heard the welcome/warning chirp as I drove over the Harmonee Bridge, where many of my neighbors stood smiling in the sun, holding signs endorsing Barrett and Mitchell. I smiled and waved, but I'm sure others of my neighbors who drove there gritted their teeth and thought darker thoughts about cuckoos.

Tomorrow the moment's election madness will be over. Whoever wins will be cuckooing triumph while the loser sinks into silence and despair. Or noisy chirping complaint. Or both.

Here's my post-election conceit: some of us are deaf, and some of us are blind, and nearly all of us fail to pay attention to everything we need to. So let's stay alert and hold hands to get across the street together.

Chirp!

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