Gathering the story on Diane Groy’s heroic actions last week that prevented a distracted driver from injuring children in the crosswalk she was guarding at Tenney and McClure streets near Wethersfield School brought back memories. There was a time that I stood on that same corner more than 60 years ago as a safety patrol boy.

I don’t remember how a country kid like me got the job but suspect it was my sixth-grade seat partner and best friend Kim Stonier’s idea. After all, it got us out of school for an hour and we got to wear these nifty, white safety patrol belts which elevated our “coolness” a few notches.

This was in the 1960-61 school year and, although Tenney Street was also a state and federal highway back then, it only had two lanes. The present four lane wouldn’t be built for about 10 years.

Kim and I had the noon hour shift. In those days, students got a full hour for lunch. Country kids, like me, had the choice of bringing our lunch or eating in the cafeteria but those who lived within walking distance of the school went home where their mother had a nice meal waiting for them.

They even had time for a short nap before hiking back to school. According to Wethersfield Junior/Senior High School secretary Becca Herridge, high school students now get 30 minutes for a lunch break, junior high students get 40 minutes twice a month. During that time, Wethersfield has an open campus for students who meet certain eligibility requirements who have half an hour to scurry across Tenney to McDonald’s, La Gondola, or Beck’s. The only place to legally cross Tenney Street is at McClure.

As I maneuvered around the intersection this week sizing it up for the story, I couldn’t help but notice how much the little crossing I once guarded had grown. Students have to hurry across four lanes of busy traffic…cars; trucks small, big and huge; vans and tractors. Diane has done this for 27 years but says she still has to take a deep breath before walking out to the middle of the highway and making sure every student gets swiftly and safely across.

In 1960 there were no traffic signals hanging over the intersection controlling traffic below as there is today. The only warning drivers had that school children might be crossing the street ahead were two yellow signs, one north and south of the intersection equipped with a red light that was set to flash when students would be crossing the street.

It amazes me, and scares me a little bit, too, when I think of how Kim and I, with the lack of forethought you would expect from sixth graders, marched out into the two-lane road when students wanted across, wearing nothing more visible than a while safety belt that draped over one shoulder and went around four waist. We raised an open hand into the air motioning traffic to stop, if it hadn’t been by the flashing red light. As the students walked out into the street one of us stood on the north side of the crosswalk, the other on the south and held out our arms forming a “safety gate.”

I can’t remember, but someone must have instructed us on what we were supposed to do but I do remember we took the job seriously, as does Mrs. Groy. Diane, by the way, thinks bringing back those school crossing signs with the red flashing lights wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Fortunately, the Stonier & Clarke Safety Patrol Service had nothing like what happened last Friday morning happen to us. But not many years after that, probably because traffic was increasing in numbers, along with speed and things to distract the drivers, the student safety patrols were replaced by the first adult crossing guard, the late Alta Brinker. She “owned” the intersection from 1963 to 1980 and in the tradition that Diane Groy continues today, put the safety of the children above all else and woe be to anyone who got in her way.

Taking a close look at the current setup at Tenney and McClure, as I did this week, It seems that more could be done to warn (and wake up) motorists as they approach that intersection from all four directions that children may be in the road ahead. But the best thing we all can do is drive more responsibly…and more attentively, when driving near any school.

As Superintendent Dr. Andrew Brooks put it in the commendation he presented to Mrs. Groy, “Diane’s actions remind us all of the critical importance of road safety, especially near schools. Drivers must be vigilant at all times, but even more so in school zones where young lives are at stake. Slow down, be alert, use your turn signals, and be prepared to stop when children and crossing guards are present.”

From a former safety patrol boy at Tenney and McClure to the current guardian of the post, congratulations. Your dedication and devotion to the students of Wethersfield CUSD #230 are sincerely appreciated by parents, teachers, administrators and the community.

In the words of “Hill Street Blues” Sgt. Phillip Esterhaus (played by Michael Conrad) when he sent the officers out into the streets for the day, “Let’s be careful out there.”