It’s 7:45 am and school is about to start. The energy is monotonous and dead. Everyone is beyond the boundaries of what defines to be simply “tired”, bitterly questioning why they are up so early in the morning. Parents rush to drive their cars up to the school gates, and children cross the street to reach the gates of Foothills Middle School with sluggish movements. In this daily craze, people tend to ignore the little things that end up waking us up and brightening our day. I remember in the days I attended Foothills Middle School that little thing that everyone probably took for granted was not exactly a “thing”, per se, but rather, our beloved crossing guard, Manny.

No matter how early or late I had arrived at school, whether I was slogging my way up the street or frantically dashing past the street, he would always be there waiting to control the traffic and maintain the safety of the students. He would always be sitting in his trusty old fold up chair under the multicolored umbrella that stood blinding drivers with happy colors early in the morning. Every car, student, or teacher the passes by on the way to school receives a glorious smile or wave from Manny, and he never neglects a single soul. Days are uplifted, grins are received, and students and parents alike trot off to their respective workplaces with relieved spirits, each incredibly glad to have received something so positively genuine at the wee hours of dawn.

To receive a tidbit of something so simple, yet optimistic, consistently throughout the year can create a large impact, no matter how subconscious said desire can be. Students in middle school struggle through lapses of social lives, dramas unforeseen in the sunnier days of elementary school, and consistent pressures from a wholly new classroom environment altogether. Parents retain similar plights, too, overloaded with the chores of work hours with balancing the needs of a child or more, along with juggling both personal and monetary-related ordeals. So to have a small beam of sunlight shine through the gray clouds of what would otherwise be a completely negative day is a blessing in disguise: like the Blue Car Effect, once people are exposed to a singular favorable event, they immediately begin actively seeking it in other portions of the day as well. To take it upon himself to deliver this kindly act is a brave act indeed; and to see that constant smile on a crossing guard at the small junction between a quaint middle school and a busy street is, if anything, a blessing.