Coming out of mass this morning I walked uptown. As a group of us came up alongside the exit from an underground garage, the sidewalk was blocked by large truck that had just made a garbage pick up from the building that owned the parking garage. The truck was trying to make a right turn into traffic.
Two women and I waited patiently. A man in the group did not. He shouted at the truck driver and demanded that he back down the ramp again so that we could pass. The driver tried explaining that this was the only way he could get into traffic. No matter to the man. He was in a hurry and as a pedestrian he had rights.
The truck driver gave in graciously and backed down to let us by. The man didn't give him so much as a thank you.
I called him on it. He didn't appreciate it. He appears to work at the Bank of Canada, by the way, which I did not find reassuring.
When I was learning to sail and learning the rules governing right of way I was taught that there were cases where you should not insist on your rights. Sail has right of way over power for example but sailors should show courtesy and tack out of the way when a working vessel such as a fishing boat or a tug comes along. These people are working and we should show some respect.
I apply the same sort of rule in cases like this morning. It's hard work driving a large truck to pick up garbage during Friday-morning rush hour. And we owe that guy. If he wasn't around we'd soon miss him. If we can make his life easier by showing him a little courtesy, then it is beholden upon us to do so.
Thinking about the incident afterward, I remembered a great hat I'd seen years before. It read, "If the meek inherit the earth, who'll drive the big trucks." I've always liked that joke and I've liked it all the more because some people really don't like it. But it occurred to me today, that I'd seen a situation that was the reverse of the assumption behind the joke. The humble, polite man was the one driving the big truck.
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