CARS, GET OFF MY HEELS!
By Kirsten Anderberg
www.angelfire.com/la3/kirstenanderberg, www.kanderberg.blogspot.com

I am so damned sick of trying to WALK across streets and having cars biting at my heels…so am I supposed to RUN across crosswalks so people in cars can go FASTER?
It is amazing to me how many people in America have absolutely no guilt about driving around in huge SUVS, with one driver per vehicle, and then hedging pedestrians’ heels in crosswalks! It is as if they have never heard of oil and war in their insulated metal bubbles. For god’s sake, I am walking. I am not polluting, I am not causing traffic, I am not guzzling Middle Eastern, American, or Arctic Reserve oil and I do not need wars that kill children to support my automobile addictions. I know how to ride buses and bikes, and walk.

I used to know a wild punk/hippie in Santa Cruz, Ca. named Beth. She was an artist and performer, and definitely followed her own drummer. She had a tattoo up her shaved head, wore bizarre makeup and clothing, etc. I remember once she wore one of those German drinking bar maid dresses, where the bust area of blouse is out front, and it was legal to not wear a top in Santa Cruz if a woman, so she was wearing it without the blouse. It was a German frilly dress, with her breasts pushed up through the front, as she casually walked downtown. Her appearance intimidated middle class-insulated folks, basically. I remember once Beth and I were in the health food store parking lot, and this woman in a Mercedes rolled up. She had a bumper sticker that said “Stop Child Abuse, Stop Abortion” on her car. Beth walked up to the car, peeled the bumper sticker off, rolled it in a ball, and then put it underneath the woman’s windshield wiper, smiling at her, as the woman sat trembling in her locked car. I am not condoning Beth’s behavior, I am merely commenting on it. She definitely was a creative character.

Once Beth was approached by a potential rapist in a phone booth late at night. He would not let her out of the booth, no one was around, so, she asked him his name…and scared him! By biting herself, and then drawing his name IN BLOOD on the phone booth wall INSIDE A HEART while she looked at him with crazy eyes…he ran away in fear! Beth was a performance artist, for sure.

I remember Beth did not like this cars biting on pedestrian heels thing. She was PRO-PEDESTRIAN. So the first tactic I saw her use was spitting. As she was walking in a crosswalk, and a car tried to creep past her, edging her along, she would just spit right in their driver’s window, right on them, as they edged into the crosswalk! It shocked the drivers but I never saw them get out of their cars to hassle her! And I bet next time, they let her walk across the crosswalk without getting so close! After that, she graduated to a big sharp rock! One day I was complaining about cars trying to run me over for simply walking across a street, and she said “Let me show you how I do it…” She grabbed a big, sharp, triangular rock and walked into the crosswalk. As a car starting inching into her in the crosswalk, she merely held out the rock, looked at the driver, pointed the pointy end towards their car and held it out at exactly far enough that if they entered the crosswalk, they would have a huge gouge in their car. That worked to keep them at bay until she was out of the crosswalk. And since the rock was in her hand, and she was in a crosswalk, that would be an interesting property damage case, because they entered the crosswalk illegally, with a pedestrian in it, and she was an arm’s length from them, so it could be argued they damaged their own cars, I would think…not that the argument would win, but it is an interesting scenario. If the car never broke the law entering the crosswalk with Beth in it, their car would not have been damaged…She also liked to walk up over the hoods of any car in the crosswalk and I liked that one a lot.

Once Beth made a citizen’s arrest on the Mall in Santa Cruz. This guy threw his cigarette butt onto the sidewalk, and he was walking with his girlfriend. Beth told him that was littering and it killed baby birds, so he needed to pick up his cigarette litter. He rolled his eyes and kept walking. He had no idea who he was dealing with. She screamed “Citizen’s Arrest.” He sort of bolted for his car with his date. Beth chased him and jumped on the hood of his car! She grabbed his steering wheel from the hood! Screaming “Citizen’s Arrest!” over and over! A cop showed up and Beth jumps off the guy’s car, and says “Thank god you are here, officer. This man littered and he refuses to pick his trash up. He is a baby bird killer. He needs to go pick up his trash!” The confused cop looked at the man and said, “Go pick up your cigarette butt…” and the man reluctantly, and confused by now himself, he picked up his cigarette butt…and then was allowed to drive off peacefully. One more baby bird saved by Beth!