The Power of One

 

mettle - noun - a person's ability to cope well with difficulties or to face a difficult situation in a spirited or resilient way (Google)

U.S. Route 22, an east-to-west thoroughfare, is one of the original U.S. highways of 1926 connecting Cincinnati, Ohio to Newark, New Jersey. (Wikipedia). The span that runs through Springfield, Union, and Hillside, New Jersey is particularly treacherous as there are six lanes, three extending east and three west, separated by a wide median. Littering the triptych of land bisected via the roadway are various strip malls, fast-food restaurants, retail conglomerates, and center-island u-turns that are a constant distraction for the drivers of trucks, cars, and motorcycles, weaving in and out of lanes indiscriminately at fifty to sixty miles per hour. No doubt, it has got to be one of the most dangerous highways in the country. I recall that just after I earned my driver's license at seventeen, my parents forbade me to drive on the "Double Deuce" as it was affectionately known for fear of my becoming just another highway statistic, a teen who lost her life in a car accident. Although 22 made me jittery, against my parents' wishes, I still braved it just to get to Geno's and back for some fried chicken at lunch time. 

It still makes me nervous to negotiate the nefarious 22. As someone who has been behind a wheel since the age of twelve (I used to drive up and down my parents' driveway, a serpentine, thousand feet.), I nonetheless lack the mettle one requires to put the peddle to the medal in an SUV with confidence. Today, though, a dauntless stranger unknowingly assisted me in making a nerve-wracking U-turn from east to west on Route 22. A pedestrian, an older woman with cottony white hair dressed like a banker and holding onto two rolling suitcases, was waiting to cross the westbound lane, bustling with on-coming traffic of all shapes, sizes and velocities. I have no idea how long she was there, but within a minute or two of my arrival at the jug handle, she intrepidly stepped into the fast lane, held up her feeble hand like a crossing guard before an elementary school, and stopped the oncoming traffic dead. Thrice she did this–one lane at a time–until the entire ensemble of previously surging, deflecting vehicles was frozen at a standstill, allowing her to get to the other side safely and me to accelerate in front of her onto an empty macadam expanse sans anymore wait time. To tell you the truth, I don't think I have ever seen anything like it. The octogenarian had more mettle than any D.C. Comics action heroine, and she wasn't even fictive. Surely, she must have seen herself as some sort of superhero anyway to possess that degree of grit. 

As I sped off to Barnes and Noble on Rt. 22 west, I couldn't help but think of the power that one mere mortal can wield if that particular mortal is equipped with mettle and self-confidence. If all of us had that woman's kind of tenacity and courage, we'd all be a lot better off today. Clearly, there is power in each one of us. We just have to summon the strength to use it to benefit others, not merely ourselves.

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