Shades of Red and Blue

Virginia is equipped state-wide with a warning light system at most major intersections. Essentially, when a fire or EMS vehicle is nearing the intersection, a flood light begins pulsing to warn traffic that the emergency vehicle is approaching, and the light turns red in the direction opposite of that of the approaching first responder. Karen and I were driving somewhere a few days ago…I can’t remember where…and I saw the pulsing floodlight. Quite handy, because it causes you to begin scanning forward and backward to see whether or not you need to move to the right and stop to permit the passage of the lights and sirens.

Over the weekend, it happened again…Karen didn’t hear the siren, and asked why I was stopping and moving to the side of the street. During a recent road trip, we had just pulled back onto the highway from getting a snack, and I had to move over and stop to permit a police cruiser to shoot past me. In fact, the afternoon that I write this, I was cut off in traffic by a suddenly illuminating police cruiser executing a traffic stop on an SUV.

It seems that, wherever Karen and I have lived since we’ve been married, it’s always close to a major source of lights and sirens. Major fire precincts have been within earshot of both of the apartments in which we’ve lived together, and most recently we’re just off of a major artery of traffic, as well. Thus, emergency vehicles of all sorts go blowing by on a regular basis, their lights briefly visible from our sun room window.

I’m not sure if I should read something into this fact, or not. It seems to me I would be over-spiritualizing to do so. A little over a year ago, the building across the street in our apartment complex was evacuated due to a kitchen fire. The parking lots were instantly filled with ladder trucks, rescue trucks, fire engines, ambulances, and a battalion chief. They descended in a matter of minutes. I was comforted by this, that they could respond that quickly should the need arise. It’s certainly not the only time I’ve seen fire vehicles in our parking lot; apparently the building next door has a tenant that experiences frequent medical crises, because an ambulance frequently arrives late at night, red and white strobes piercing through our bedroom window.

It causes me to wonder at times. Have Karen and I just coincidentally lived in apartments nearby emergency responders? Does this sort of stuff gravitate toward me? Does my guilty fascination with police reality television make me hyper-aware of a normal amount of activity? Or is there really that much trouble occurring around us, that many lives in trouble, that many conflicts? Do that many people have to cry for help so frequently?

The tiny apartment that I lived in during grad school…what would be my last “bachelor pad”…was situated in a quiet neighborhood which saw almost no trouble. One night, though, soon after I moved in, about five police cruisers sailed by at blinding speed, lights flaring and sirens wailing. A few months later, a police cruiser was quietly parked on the corner as I filled out a complaint because someone had vandalized my car. I’ve had to stop and call for help after witnessing numerous accidents while driving here or there in my life. Perhaps it really does follow me. Or perhaps I just notice it a great deal.

We all really cry out for help that much, don’t we? And we all feel more comfortable with the thought that there are those who are willing to come to our aid when we do. The allure of super-hero mythologies is that we all want a hero, and we all desire to be one at some point.

All of us. Every one.

Second Photo Attribution: khawkins04 

4 Comments

  1. Okay…this post has prompted me to acknowledge that people (at least here in VA) do not know WHAT to do when there are sirens! Just the other day, I watched a car proceed to turn left while an ambulance was trying to go through the intersection…all I thought as I drove on was, ‘poor person whose life was relying on the prompt arrival of that ambulance…’

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