Other Voices
In Los Altos, we like to refer to ourselves as a village. It sounds cozy, sophisticated, and different from the rest of the mass of urban sprawl.
We can call ourselves whatever we want, and pay to have our signs printed as we please, but until we treat our village and our streets and our people as if they belong to all of us, our village will remain undifferentiated from the rest of the Peninsula.
They aren't my streets or your streets, but ours. Our lanes don't belong to the residents who'd like them to be ever quiet. Nor are they owned by parents tempted to go 45 mph to get children to soccer, baseball, basketball or swimming on time. They're our streets, and we need to drive on them as if everyone else in the community is distracted, busy, late and taking cold medicine.
Our self-imposed 25 mph speed limits protect our children and our elderly, our pets and ourselves from the inevitable distracted moment. The coach will understand if you're late. He'll have more trouble understanding why you felt it was necessary to run down a star athlete to get to practice on time.
Late for school or work? It happens. Remember to slow down anyway, and drive on our streets as if an accident could happen at any moment.
The parks are ours too, and that means sharing. It's not the end of the world if a basketball bounces onto the baseball field or if a child uses an empty tennis court for roller-blade practice - it just means we know how to share.
Sharing also means cleaning up after our dogs all the time, not just when someone is looking. It means supervising our children and making sure they remember the rules. It means taking our trash home when the trash cans are full .
If I let my dog poop on the sidewalk without picking up after her, it might be your child who has to start his school day off on the wrong foot. So I try to remember it's our sidewalk and act accordingly.
Rancho is our shopping center, not the personal shortcut of those who live in the neighborhood and have two more errands to finish before baseball practice is over. It's really not necessary to race to get the last parking spot in front of Starbucks before the next SUV. Drive through Rancho as if your own sons and daughters are still riding their bikes there. Drive as though your own teenager might have made a parking mistake and need a little extra room to straighten things out. Yesterday, it was you or your neighbor who backed out of a parking space without looking while trying to remember the errands you needed to finish. Tomorrow, it will undoubtedly be me. If you don't have time to drive 25, do you have time to wait while I search through my purse for my insurance information?
It scares you when children playing tag in front of Lappert's veer too close to the parking lot. You fear for your paint when a grocery cart runs away from a nanny juggling twin toddlers. And it makes you very very angry when the crossing guards ask you to stop to let our children cross the street. At 25, those things will still be traumatic, but not nearly as disturbing as when your speed is twice the allowed norm.
Drive on our streets as if they belong to all of us. Treat our parks as if they're priceless reminders of a slower era. Treat our children as if the future, your future, depends on them.
If we do, our village will really be a village.
Mary Cooper Feliz is a Los Altos resident.