Everywhere she goes, Dorothy meets a friend

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By Bill Wundram | Friday, June 27, 2008 1:17 AM CDT | () comments

STEP up and give a hand to Dorothy Holst. Dot is one of the multitude whose names never appear in the newspaper. But she is someone everyone knows. Dorothy is limping these days because she had knee surgery. She wanted to get it over with this summer, so she can get back to duty as an adult crossing guard at Harrison School, Davenport.

It will be her 30th year as one of those heroes who is out there in snow and sunshine to herd kids across the street.

Everyone knows Dorothy, which is the point of all this. She invited me to her tidy house to sit at her dining room table, with its crocheted tablecloth, and have a glass of iced tea. She wanted to tell me all about how — before her surgery — she unexpectedly encountered such an assortment of people whom she has helped across the street.

“What a wonderful coincidence it was,” she says. “I went into Cunnick-Collins funeral home and met a mortician, Kim Walker. He said he was a patrol boy when I was a crossing guard. I remember him very well.

Then, I went to the doctor’s office and met Dr. Chris Crome, who said to me, ‘I remember you as my crossing guard.’ He was such a cute little boy, and so nice.

“I went to Genesis for pre-op admitting. The nurse named Kathy said, ‘Weren’t you my crossing guard at Harrison School? I was your patrol girl.’ This kept going on. The woman named Becky who drew blood said, ‘Hi, Dorothy.’ She remembered me as her Harrison crossing guard.

At Harrison School, the principal, Tom Green, wished me well. He was a patrol boy at my school. To think, one of my kids is now my principal.”

When Dorothy got home from the hospital, she was cared for by a visiting nurse. Of course, the nurse said, “I remember you as my crossing guard at Harrison School”

Says Dorothy: “It’s so rewarding to see how all my kids have grown up and how well they’ve done.”

Weather or not …

From Barbara Carter, Moline:

Those storms that are termed “isolated,”

Just where, do pray tell, are they gated.

And who lets them out,

Causing many to shout,

“Enough, please: Our town’s saturated.”

Duck, they’re tossing candy

About midway through Shai Mally’s bat mitzvah at Tri-City Jewish Center, Rock Island, several young people went up and down the aisles with big baskets, passing out penny candy.

Humm, I thought, a good respite during a long ceremony. I chewed on a caramel. My wife ate a Tootsie Roll.

The ceremony continued with a mishaberach (special blessing) in honor of Shai. At that moment, everyone tossed their candy at her. It was a shower of sweets. We were embarrassed; we had already eaten ours.

It is a custom, we learned, to shower the bat mitzvah with candy in honor of this sweet event. After all the candy had been tossed, Rabbi Michael Samuel invited children to come forward and claim it. It was an orderly stampede, like kids rushing to get candy tossed from floats in a parade.

Bill Wundram can be contacted at (563) 383-2249 or bwundram@qctimes.com.