Do Not Cross

I’m assuming there once was a double yellow line in the middle of this street in La Cygne, but it’s long since gone.

Small towns – some of them are seemingly lawless and take the Laissez-faire approach. Other towns happily write ordinances and post signs, most of which say “do not.”

My hometown did not micromanage driving laws. We made U-turns at will. We stopped our vehicles in the middle of Main St. to converse with another driver. And, since the conversation would last awhile, we shut off our engines. Heck, people could go around. No one got in a tizzy.

If anyone had put up “do not” signs in Pawnee Rock, the adults would’ve ignored them, the young drivers would be cutting kitties (cutting donuts) across the double yellow lines. A fact.

There were always stop signs at the intersections with Main Street and Highway 56. And then sometime in the late ’60s or early ’70s, the city did post stop signs at a number of intersections in Pawnee Rock. Those signs might as well have been invisible. No one stopped at them.

People either felt that:  1) No one is going to tell me what to do, and/or 2) We’ve never needed stop signs before. If a car is coming, someone will naturally yield.

Willful disobedience. That’s where I was raised.