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Commentary: Measuring Community In Spare Change
By
Shannon Snow
February 11, 2005
Last fall, I moved from Somerville, Mass., an urban suburb of
Boston, to the West Coast for a change. But change is exactly
what I left behind: nickels, dimes and quarters.
An avid walker, I used to walk a half an hour to work on the
streets of Somerville, through rain, sleet and most often snow.
My coworkers teased me about my long treks, which would leave
me breathless and giddy in the morning.
"Shannon, you could write a book about your walk to work," my
office mate Craig once said, after listening to another one of
my lively stories about Who I Saw This Morning.
I could have. I was fascinated by the people I passed everyday:
a gentleman with a top hat and pipe that looked like the Monopoly
man, a guy who carried his lunch in a yogurt container on a long
string, a convenience store clerk I bypassed each day who kissed
me when I finally came inside.
But of all the people I encountered on my commute, it is the
meter maid that I miss the most, although she surely does not
miss me.
Somerville's Department of Parking and Transportation was on
Highland Street near where I worked, and the local meter maid
dispatched from there. I would sometimes see her leave in the
morning and often in the afternoons.
She was a round woman with spiky bottle-blond hair who always
wore shorts, even in the winter. You'd have to be ruthless
to wear shorts in 10-degree temperatures, I always thought.
She was.
On Friday afternoons after a long week of ticketing, the meter
maid would inevitably end her weekly rounds back in the neighborhood
in which she started. At 5:45 p.m. every Friday, she would walk
down Highland Street, the same route on which I walked home from
work, giving tickets to cars with expired parking meters.
Ludicrous, I thought. Metered parking ends at 6. Besides,
it's no way to start someone's weekend.
So I began to leave a little bit earlier from work on Fridays,
with my bag of laundry money in hand. I started to slip nickels,
dimes and quarters into people's expired meters. Just enough
to get them through until metered parking ended.
The meter maid caught wind of what I was doing one day. I was
late walking home and she was already writing up a ticket for
some poor soul with a Nissan. Somerville was historically a working
class neighborhood that had more recently been overtaken with
the young, post-college set. Gentrified or not, many people I
knew in the area could not afford that ticket.
I passed her on the sidewalk, and began throwing change into
every meter. Quarter, turn, click! Quarter, turn, click! Quarter,
turn, click! She followed me only a half a block behind, walking
faster and faster to catch up. I almost dared not look back as
I went from meter to meter, lest she reach me.
Only after 6 p.m. did I fully turn around, but she was already
gone.
Our feud continued for more than a year, she ticketing earlier,
I bringing more change. One evening we locked eyes from opposite
sides of the road, where she was placing a ticket on the dashboard
of a sedan. Damn. It had never occurred to me to walk
down that side of the street.
But one day, after I was admitted to Stanford and was trying
to decide what to do next, the meter maid disappeared. She was
replaced by a man who looked no older than 17. I never saw my
meter maid again, and I couldn't help thinking that it must be
time for me to leave too. I did.
I still walk everywhere I go in California, but it is not the
same. Bikes zoom by me at lightning speed, there is no Monopoly
man or beloved grocery store clerk, and I almost never see the
same person twice. I know it will only be a matter of time before
I must get a car, and see no one at all.
As I prepare to settle down on the West Coast, I know that here
may be warmer than Somerville, the terrain more beautiful, the
mood relaxed. But wonder if my life was richer living in a place
where I didn't need to drive, where I could breathe and feel
and touch and care about the people who lived all around me.
Richer, of course, except for some nickels, dimes and quarters.
Contact Shannon Snow at ssnow@stanford.edu
