The Political Issue
Vol. 4 Issue 2

An Iconoclast Editorial
by Tim Cragg

     It's easy to get caught acting like an ordinary cork in the ebb and flow of life's tide. Just bobbing along minding your own. You feel secure in your belief that you've done nothing to gain the attention of anyone or anything that can harm you. You might not go out of your way to help a person you don't know, but you don't cause harm, either. And then your passiveness is jolted out of you by a shiny, new, black, sports car.
     While at a dead standstill at a red light on the corner of 2nd and Fairmount at 2 a.m. on the Friday before Christmas, my insignificant, little pick-up was lightly rear-ended. I got out of my truck as the offender got out of his car. I looked at my bumper and saw a small dent and some chipped paint. Big deal. The truck has nearly 140,000 miles on it and needed a paint job since I bought it. Not being injured, myself or the truck, I told the other driver that I was O.K. and asked if he was all right. After, no harm no foul, right? And, besides, it was Christmas.
     With an aggressive posture, he informed me that he was an off-duty Philadelphia police officer and ordered me to pull my truck to the side of the road. I don't know why innocent people get rattled at the sight of a badge, but we do. I said, "You hit me, I'm all right so don't worry about it."  Again, with more purposeful aggression, he declared himself a lawman, flashed his badge, and ordered me to the side of the road. Timid sheep that I am, I complied.
   On the northwestern corner was a man just minding his own. As I pulled my truck over, the off-duty officer spoke to him. I had never seen the man and probably never will again. I turned off the engine and exited the truck in time to see the black car, right front turn signal smashed, fender dented pulling away.
   The bystander said to me that the off-duty officer told him , the bystander, to tell me I was free to go! But the man on the corner also told me that the off-duty officer's first words were, "You didn't see anything, did ya?"
   A reply of "Yes", acting like that typical, bobbing cork, would have done me in. You see, the off0duty officer had a passenger in his vehicle. I did not. The math is easy. Two, a Philadelphia police officer and his friend, against one, me. But instead the man on the corner screamed, "NO!". He told the off-duty officer what he saw, that the pickup had been clearly rear-ended by the black sports car, and that he would tell the authorities, if someone of authority arrived, exactly that. That was all it took to force the serpent to quickly slither away.
    What did the man on the corner have to gain by helping me? Absolutely nothing. He was just that type of person, the type we all should be. I shook his hand and thanked him profusely and wished him the merriest of Christmases. People like him are the only thing standing between us and abuse. We should all work out our fears, stand erect, and look everyone in the eye.
     The two gentlemen involved with me and my truck on that warm December night know exactly who and what they are. And so do I.