Retrospect: the road crosser

Self-tutoring about people and events linking back to the past: the tutor mentions someone he saw.

My wife and I were driving to the grocery store today, down a 4-lane road. Its speed limit is only 50km/h, but it can be busy in the daytime. Today, on a Saturday afternoon, it wasn’t busy, but not asleep, either.

About 50m ahead of us a man on foot broke from the sidewalk and sprinted across the four lanes, resuming his walk in the same direction we were going. As we passed him a few seconds later, I noticed a cigarette in his mouth.

“They don’t make them like that anymore,” I observed to my wife.

Back in the 70s or 80s such a maneuver wouldn’t have stood out; today, it really does.