Some people laughed when I said I'd become a school crossing supervisor. They saw the big orange 'lollipop' Stop sign. They saw the daggy uniform. They saw the bizarre image of a bloke stopping peak-hour traffic with not much more than a whistle and a stick.
I'd see a father waiting at a corner 50m from the school, lovingly watching his young daughter make her way to the crossing.
I'd see a big sister holding a little sister's hand, all the way up the street, across the road and into the schoolyard.
I'd see mums and dads kissing their children goodbye at the school gate or waving silently from behind windscreens.
I'd see a boy dawdling, picking up sticks and stones, turning them over, putting them in his pocket. He was often the last to cross, arriving as the school's public address system played 'hurry up' music at 8:55am — usually 1980s rock anthems — but he was in no hurry.
And nor was I, standing there watching the world go by.
I took the job almost on a whim, in the mid-life midst of wondering where my future lay. Observing the cars and vans and utes and trucks driving past I tried to imagine being, say, a plasterer or a gardener or a police officer. A bricklayer, a paramedic, an antenna installer. A green grocer, a bus driver, a truckie. A road builder, a communications consultant, a driving instructor, a district nurse, a plumber, a window cleaner.
But with each glimpse of each vehicle I'd think No, No and No again. And as far as I could tell there were no particular vehicles — save perhaps the occasional beat-up sedan — that suggested a writer or a daydreamer.
Eventually I realised the job I wanted was probably the job I was doing there and then, that perhaps my future was right there in my hands, holding that Stop sign and being part of the rhythm of the neighbourhood, being — in a very small way — a guardian, a witness, a go-between, a shepherd.
But it couldn't last. The hourly rate was good but it's not a full-time gig. Ten 45-minute shifts a week wasn't going to pay many bills.
So after two months I packed my uniform, sign and flags under the stairs and headed