It was the tail end of the third Council meeting on the third Tuesday night in a row, and Key Biscayne's diligent Councilpeople were looking a bit bleary-eyed. Once again, a good part of the agenda lay untouched. As for the items that were discussed--it seemed as though as many were deferred as were taken action on.

At the stroke of 11, Mayor Festa made his standard motion to extend the meeting, which was met by four yeas and two nays. Councilmember Hugh O'Reilly and recently-dethroned Vice Mayor Michele Padovan had had enough, and with Betty Sime absent, the two carried enough weight to close down the show.

But police chief Michael Flaherty was poised to speak about the traffic and parking situations around the Village schools, and Michele, who never met a school issue she didn't like, and Hugh, who tends to hold the law in high regard, relented for a 10-minute extension.

Having never been around the schools when they begin or let out, I'm not quite able to visualize the traffic problems. But they must be bad, evident by the fact that they were referred to as "an accident waiting to happen" approximately 3.2 times per minute of discussion.

It was decided that nothing much can be done right now, but once the sidewalks go in, and an intersection is studied for redesigning and other measures (such as crosswalks, more signs, tire shredders, etc.) are in place, the situation ought to improve. Of course, by then the community school will have a lot more students and the problem will probably be just as bad or worse.

I suppose if the Councilpeople had more time, they would have brainstormed a bit, but their brains were already getting as mushy as mine from four hours and 10 minutes of special presentations and oft-circuitous talk about ordinances, land deals, funding, landscaping and the ever-mind-numbing sanitary sewer project.

One thing that could be done to alleviate some of the danger which revolves around little school kids and cars was briefly discussed before falling into the pile marked "things to do at a date uncertain." That was to hire additional crossing guards. Apparently, the Village has one. Flaherty said that they advertised for more, but finding people on the Key willing to work for $7 an hour is not an easy thing to do, in part because most of the residents here earn more than that in their sleep.

The Councilpeople's eyes swept the room, as though looking for a volunteer in the teeming crowd of three. There we sat--Haydee Archibald, Scott Bass and myself--grim-faced survivors of a legislative blitz that had already driven away everyone else in the evening's crowd. I considered the job for a moment, just long enough to drift back to fond memories of days gone by, when I was in elementary school and worked as a crossing guard for free.

At my school, we were called "safeties," and we wore bright yellow belts across our chests with a metal badge over the heart. Three times a day, before school, at lunch and after school, we would boldly set out for our street corner posts. Through fall, winter and spring, we'd brave the rain, snow and wind to make sure that none of the neighborhood kiddies got squooshed by a Cadillac with fins.

Though we didn't get paid cash, we did get time off from school, arriving late to class or leaving early. And even in the worst weather conditions, it was clearly better to hang around outside than be cooped up in class listening to Miss Martin lecture about the Monroe Doctrine or Manifest Destiny.

As a fifth grader, I served at the most remote outpost, Cadwaller Road, during the worst shift, after school. But in the sixth grade, I was elected safety lieutenant, second in command to the captain and only a heartbeat away from his cherished red belt.

As lieutenant, I was responsible for learning how to spell "lieutenant," which still serves me today. I was also responsible for making out the schedule, and of course put myself at a post near home at the best hours, when I'd be missing only school and not any of my own free time.

I was honored as "Safety of the Week" on several occasions, mainly because with more weeks in the school year than safeties, we all had a few chances. I do remember one moment of valor, when I rescued little Robby Lieberman's hat from the surface of the frozen creek by the Shoemaker Road crossing.

The ice was fresh and thin and I probably shouldn't have gone out on it, but Robby was crying and screaming that his mother would kill him. Besides, it was I who had kiddingly tossed his woolen hat in the air, only to have the breeze catch it and blow it over the bridge railing and to the ice below.

For rescuing a hat, I won Safety of the Week. But for another act that, looking back, was far more courageous, my safety lieutenant's belt was taken away in disgrace. It happened like this:

One day, we saw a film about World War II in which I watched Nazis goose-stepping in uniform and zig heiling massive Swastika flags. I didn't think much about it until the next morning, when Miss Martin told us all to stand and salute the flag of the United States of America. Pledging allegiance to the flag suddenly struck me as something not much different than I'd seen the Nazis do, so I refused to stand up.

Miss Martin, who was tall and gaunt and had a deep, funereal voice, never gave me a chance to explain my reasons.

"You little communist," she uttered, her mortician's eyes shifting from my face to my safety belt. "You're not fit to wear that."

She made me surrender my belt, and even now, over three decades later, I still remember very distinctly the sense of shame and disempowerment that I felt as I unhooked my safety lieutenant's belt and placed it in her outstretched hand before she marched me over to the principal's office.

The principal was a sweet old gal named Bessie Husted. She had blue hair, which she wore in the style of George Washington's wig. In fact, she looked remarkably like Washington for a 19th and 20th Century woman. As always, Mrs. Husted listened to what I had to say and probably decided that Miss Martin had over-reacted. We struck a compromise in which I would stand and cross my heart, but not have to recite the Pledge of Allegiance if I didn't want to. For agreeing to those terms, I was given back my safety belt.

I wore that belt proudly, and was happy to serve humanity so long as it meant shortening the time I had to spend in Miss Martin's class. And I didn't lose it again until I graduated elementary school and moved into the harsh world of junior high, where kids had fend for themselves when crossing streets...

The long ride back to Boca Raton in the middle of the night after Council meeting is an hour or so of reverie for me. I enter a timeless realm, where past and present can sometimes come together to illuminate bits and pieces of the shadowy future.

On this night, after the third Council meeting on the third Tuesday night in a row, I thought that a partial solution to the "accidents waiting to happen" around the Village schools might be to let the kids help out. Establish a crew of safeties. Give them neat belts and badges to wear and some time off from school, and they'd be happy to work for free.

I know I was.