Not My Purview

Sunday morning, I got on my bike and rode across town to the 5K Volunteer Meeting; received my Volunteer t-shirt and little cardboard STOP sign and yellow police tape; was informed that I was in no way deputized as a sheriff or officer of the law and if there was any trouble at my intersection to call the police and that I should NOT attempt to actually stop and arrest any bull-headed drivers who made their way onto the course and then I made my way to 7th and Park to put up my police tape and man my post; I was stationed at a secluded intersection about three quarters of the way through the course and I only had to blockade one street with police tape as the other side of the street bordered on a stream; then I sipped my coffee and chatted with the family across the way, who were out with the kids waiting for the runners and in a few minutes they came through, sporadically at first, and then en masse and I cheered on the folks I knew (including my wife!) and had no trouble with traffic . . . until things started petering out and a woman with a thick accent (Russian?) wanted to know when she could pull her car out of her driveway because she had to get to an appointment and I told her to ask the police over at the next intersection and she said she had asked them and they said that she couldn't leave until all the people in the race came through-- she would know because there was a police vehicle bringing up the rear . . . and I told the woman that if she came my way, I could lift the police tape and she could shoot up 7th but she was going to get stopped at the other end, on Abbot, because the runners were looping around and I could see why she was getting annoyed because we were getting down to the end and people were walking and pushing strollers, one guy was wearing a dinosaur suit, and there seemed to be no end to it and so she said to me, "These people are not running . . . can you tell them to go faster? To start running?" and I informed her that I didn't think I had the authority to enforce any kind of pace on the runners and her answer to that was, "This running . . . I don't even understand it" and then she got in her car, pulled out of her driveway and came my way, against the grain of the race; the police at 8th and Park yelled at me to stop her, so I waved my little cardboard STOP sign at her but she drove right by me and made it two blocks, to the 5th and Park intersection and the police pulled her over there and gave her the business and she had to wait there until the bitter end . . . I'm glad no one was injured but I'm also glad that I saw some action and had a chance to use my signage, though it was to no avail.