By Daniel Vela
As a child attending Neithercut Elementary, I wanted nothing more than to don the bright orange sash and shiny silver badge worn by student crossing guards. But such an important responsibility was reserved solely for the privileged few: the ever so mature and wise fifth graders.
Sadly, as a mere fourth grader, I was foiled by the hands of time and my own youthful incompetence. However, I was determined that the next school year I would ask what I had to do to become a student crossing guard.
The teacher overseeing the program was Mr. Kimber, a favorite of many students. He was known for hurling Jolly Rancher candies out of his car window when driving by groups of us, like some type of one-man parade, and incorporating music into his teachings. (Allow me a quick aside here: I knew Mr. Kimber was cool, though I didn’t know just how cool until years later when I learned that he had played in bands with musicians like Elton John and Stevie Wonder, lived in Australia for a decade, and that he even helped create the jingle to a popular PSA for Woodsy Owl to teach children “To give a hoot, don’t pollute.” What a guy!)
When I asked Mr. Kimber what I had to do to become a crossing guard now that I was a fifth grader, he informed me that I just needed to get to school thirty minutes before the other students arrived and stay thirty minutes after school, when the last bus left. This likely seemed a simple ask, but I knew it would be a challenge for me considering my family didn’t have a car and I took the bus to and from school each day.
So, imagine my surprise when I told my mother, Norma Jean, this unfortunate requisite, and she said that, if I wanted to, I could stay after school and walk the mile and a half home after the last bus had left. I was thrilled, but it was also a bittersweet feeling because my normal bus ride home felt like it took forever some days, and I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to walk instead (or what direction to even go).
But I was determined to be a student crossing guard, and with some sacrifice, a loose sense of direction, and a few neighborhood landmarks in mind – a right after Rosehaven Manor, a left after Ace Hardware – I figured I could make it.
After checking with Mr. Kimber, he assured me that it would be okay for me to be an after-school-only crossing guard, and he told me to report to my assigned post at the corner of Greenbrook and Crestbrook Lane five minutes before school let out. So I finally, excitedly, donned my orange sash and shiny badge, prepared to be of redundant service at the clearly marked four-way stop.
I soon learned my new accessories held little authority over the younger students who were so excited to be out of school – reminding me exactly why this role was reserved for the likes of strong, mature fifth graders like myself.
Still, I took my mission seriously, ensuring the stopped vehicles remained stopped, and once every student had crossed the road and the last bus pulled away, I started my journey home.
I did this walk every day that school year, rain or shine or snow. I took Crestbrook Lane to Hammerberg Road, Hammerberg Road to Fenton Road – all the way down to the Grand Funk Railroad overpass – to my street, Lexington Avenue, where we were the last house on the left of a dead-end.
While it was only a mile and a half, at age 10, it seemed like the longest walk known to man, and I would often make stops to help break it up. There was a church I would step into to warm up in the wintertime as well as an inconspicuous little store between Pettibone and Lincoln Avenue with an old man behind the counter.
That store stands out in my mind to this day. It often had a bunch of what seemed such random items – candy or novelty joke toys like fake gum that would snap your finger when you took it out, whoopie cushions, and hand buzzers – scattered sporadically on a glass shelf, as if the owner had just found them and decided to put them up for sale. His inventory was very limited, but to 10-year-old me, it was like my own Tiffany’s on Fifth Avenue.
The old man at the counter, I unfortunately don’t recall his name, would often sit and watch TV while I browsed the quirky selection. Sometimes he would even have hot chocolate, and he’d offer me a small styrofoam cup for the rest of my journey home.
I also remember there was a spinning rack with old pulp fiction, murder-mystery, western, and Archie comics, which weren’t really my taste as a fifth grader. But on occasion the old man would get comic books with characters I recognized, like Batman or Spider Man.
It was at that small store that my love for comics and superheroes began, reading about the Dark Knight’s dedication to Gotham City no matter how bad it got, or “your friendly neighborhood Spider Man” with his quick wit and love for his community, or “the Man of Steel” and his super-strength ability to lift a car with one hand.
Slowly, I was inspired to be like my heroes in those comics I perused on my way home.
I didn’t have a Batmobile, but I did have an orange sash that gave me the power to help others. Sure, I couldn’t hold a vehicle over my head like Superman, but I could hold up an entire line of cars with just one hand while I waved the younger kids across the road.
In those pages, though I didn’t know it at the time, I fed my fledgling desire to serve others and my community. In those pages, I learned that it’s easy to do the right thing when it’s fun or convenient, but true service doesn’t begin until you feel the sacrifice. And out in the contemporaneous real world, my mom, Mr. Kimber, and that kind old man (who seemed to live in that small novelty shop) took care to help me write my own story of service.
When I got to middle school my desire to help continued, and I joined the student council. Then in high school I joined the JROTC program. After graduating, I chose to enlist in the Marine Corps to serve my country. Now, as a veteran and a current AmeriCorps VISTA member, I remain so grateful to the heroes that surrounded me in elementary school, both on and off the pages of my favorite comics. Without realizing it, they encouraged me in a pattern of serving and being a part of something greater than myself – starting with a bright orange sash in fifth grade.
Editor’s Note: This article originally ran in East Village Magazine’s December 2025 print edition. Vela has since been informed by a reader that the man who owned the novelty shop was named Ward.
