Crotchety Old Grey-Haired People

How soon we forget. That we are part of society, not separate and apart from it. Irrespective of age and perceived entitlements, that is. The fact is, society and the people within it cannot be separated by their status in life at any given time. Life is a continuum of ages, from childhood to adulthood to senior status.

It isn't too much of a stress to emphasize that care must be given to the support and protection of children. In any community there is an emphasis placed on the care and nurturance of children, of ensuring that their needs are met. This transcends one single family's concerns for its children. It really is a concern for an entire community, for society itself.

The manner in which current societies are structured has long gone beyond the confines of a tightly inhabited urban community, with schools centered in walking distance of students' homes. School busing has become a commonplace in the entrenched system of providing an education for the young and conveying them from their outspread suburban homes to the schools they attend.

The centrality of location and ensuring that children can make their way on their own to attend nearby schools has long been a thing of the past. Everyone is familiar with the ubiquity of school buses conveying children to and from school. And no one feels that elementary school children should have to fend for themselves.

So how it is that homeowners in a suburban area of Ottawa living on a crescent which they feel should be dedicated to seniors' lifestyles feel justified in campaigning against the presence of school buses driving down their street is puzzling. They claim that they should be exempt from the nuisance and noise involved in school buses shuttling up and down their street, interfering with their peace and quiet.

Peace and quiet, as the wag said, is available in plentiful amounts in the grave. "We feel that as an adult lifestyle community we should be allowed that peace of mind. Our children are grown up, we've lived through this," complained one woman. "We're done, we're retired, we want our peace and quiet, basically. And it does not involve buses."

Ah well, but it does involve buses. No street is an island on its own; there are interconnections to other streets. No children evidently live on the street itself, but because of the location of the nearby bus stops where children await pick-up, it is convenient for the buses to use the route that incorporates this street.

The irate elders who live on this 'seniors' street' would prefer the children to walk an additional block to be picked up at another corner to eliminate the need for the buses to travel down their street. The parents of the children, understandably, do not wish their young children to be thus inconvenienced as far as time and potential danger are involved.

Besides which, as the parents point out defensively, the current arrangement is temporary. Once all the building of new homes and new streets is completed, alternate routes can be found. "It is a public street", pointed out one of the parents who has four children to be picked up, including a four-year-old whom he doesn't want walking on his own.

"We don't want to be seen as crotchety old grey-haired people. We bought into this lifestyle. We paid extra money for it and we feel we deserve our peace and quiet now." Soon enough, madame.