Monday Morning

It’s 9:00 on a Monday morning. On Chapman Road in Ringgold, an elderly woman is slowly boarding the Trans-Aid bus for her daily ride to the Nutrition Center. At the Nutrition Center, she’ll enjoy good conversation, a lively activity and a hot meal. That bus is her life-line. It is the key to her independence. It’s what allows her to go on sleeping each night under her own heavy quilt inside her own cozy yellow house.

Did I mention that she is boarding slowly? A minivan pulls up behind the Trans-Aid bus, but not too closely. The driver of the minivan (that’s me) is watching the little old lady board. I’m also watching a silver-haired pedestrian walking down the road in the other lane, wondering whether she’s strolling or boarding.

I’m not impatient. In fact, I am thinking what a blessing Catoosa Trans-Aid has been to my own family. Just a few years ago when Granny was still in her 90’s, the Trans-Aid bus was Granny’s lifeline, too. That bus allowed family members to keep her in our homes even though we all worked full time.

I watch the elderly woman put one foot on the step. The bus is not just for the elderly, I remember. My cousin, who cannot drive due to visual impairment, depended on the Trans-Aid bus during her high school years for trips to the library and appointments. She graduated with honors, and then went on to earn her degree in psychology from Lee University. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree. This bright young woman is a success because of her own hard work – but also because the community stood behind her in the form of supportive teachers and counselors and, you guessed it, Catoosa County Trans-Aid.

A car pulls up behind my minivan, and perhaps another. The pedestrian weaves and continues walking. The elderly woman is still, slowly, boarding the Trans-Aid bus.

It’s 9:01 on a Monday morning. The Fed Ex driver pulls out of the apartment complex parking lot, but in his mind he is already approaching his next stop, and the next, and the next. He is already walking into the sheriff’s office and a dozen other Ringgold locations, with an envelope or a tube in one hand and his digital clipboard in the other.

The FedEx driver sees the line of cars stopped in front of him. He sees the bus and the double-lined stretch of road that falls out of sight in front of the bus, the dip creating a blind spot to oncoming traffic. He sees the elderly woman boarding and the pedestrian walking in the other lane.

But it’s 9:02 on a Monday morning. He has places to go, packages to deliver. He steps on the accelerator and swerves into the other lane, barreling past the line of cars, past the pedestrian who steps quickly into the grass, past the little old lady and the Trans-Aid bus. As he tops the hill, a horn sounds. His pulse quickens, but then he breathes a sigh of relief – There are no cars coming up the blind hill and no one pulling out of the blind driveway on the way down. Grinning, he makes his way to the next stop.

His day is pretty ordinary, racing from here to there delivering his sturdy red-white-and-blue packages – until he walks into an office he knows well, package in hand, and someone asks, “Were you on Chapman Road at 9:02 this morning?”

He knows exactly why I am asking. He never admits he was on Chapman, yet he rushes into a torrent of defense: the pedestrian stepped out of the road, he passed “only” three vehicles at a time, and besides that he ran the scenario past the sheriff right after it happened and received the okay from him.

I call Sheriff Summers myself, and he assures me the conversation never took place. Further, the sheriff states that no driver should pass a bus with flashing lights, and that Georgia law allows drivers to pass only one vehicle at a time, not three or four.

A call to Trans-Aid confirms my understanding that their buses are to be given the same courtesy as a school bus. A call to FedEx produces an apology from an anonymous operator, but three weeks later, no manager has yet bothered to return my call.

We must not allow the busy-ness of the American business culture to trump compassion for the weak and the frail. Overnight packages are not more important than pedestrians, or elderly women boarding the Trans-Aid bus.

Whether we are professional drivers or just ordinary class C drivers trying to get around town, we could all stand a dose of patience, especially when it comes to the school bus or the Trans-Aid bus. It will not kill you to be 30 seconds late. It may even save your life some Monday morning.