Walk-throughs needed
On Sunday morning, Oct. 4, I bicycled from Safeway to McDonald’s at Puainako Center in Hilo.
I had a hefty order for McDonald’s for a neighbor who had broken his ankle and cannot drive. I stood in line on my bicycle between a long line of cars. The walk-in restaurant was closed because of COVID-19. As I was waiting, an older man with a bushy beard was sitting on the curb. He approached me and said that I wasn’t going to be able to place my order because the drive-through sensor wouldn’t detect the bike. He said he tried multiple times, and he was frustrated.
I decided to wait anyway. Finally, just before it was my turn, an arm popped out of the car in front of me and told me to go ahead and order. She must have thought that since her car was directly in front of the menu microphone that they would let me order.
So I stood in front of the menu and placed my order, but the employee quickly (remember, you’re on camera) noticed I was not in a car. She asked, “Are you on a bike?” “No,” I said, which is technically not a lie because I was standing next to my bike, not sitting on it.
Quickly, the woman in the car told me to jump in her car. She let me place my order, and then she placed hers, and we paid separately. I thanked her profusely and got out quickly to fetch my bicycle and wait in the shade for my husband to pick me up. He had dropped me off so he could do his own errands and I could do mine.
As I sat on a bench, I saw another homeless man being given a hamburger by a good Samaritan in a car, and I could see the first man who warned me that buying a cheap, warm meal if you don’t have a car in times of COVID is difficult. He had a bicycle himself and what looked like all of his possessions in bags around him. I don’t think that the lady who let me get in her car would have let him in her car.
Homeless people might even have a hard time going into a restaurant, as restaurants reserve the right to admission. So, why shouldn’t there be a walk-through for people who don’t have cars? Or for people like myself who have cars, but happen to be exercising on a bicycle or on foot?
It is heartless and insensitive. Let us take care of each other.
Adriana Woods
Kurtistown
The right direction
The “An extra layer of security” article in Oct. 2 Tribune-Herald is very encouraging.
It is good to hear about progress being made in preflight testing as well as in building up reliable systems for contact tracing and quarantine monitoring, as the only way we can get our economy going again is by getting the pandemic under control.
The bubble concept could never work. A prison is an almost a perfect bubble. Yet, we released some prisoners in fear of the pandemic spreading. The really perfect bubbles are the cruise ships. We all know what happened to the passengers and staff in those bubbles.
The responsible visitors will come only if they are fairly confident it is safe to stay in Hawaii as well as to travel to and from Hawaii. Otherwise, what we get are mostly the risk-takers who have no intention to observe the quarantine or any other rules.
Relying on risk-taking visitors could badly damage our health, image and long-term economic recovery. Hopefully, people will act more responsibly, as the “superiority turns invincibility” myth has been broken.
It is difficult for responsible travelers to feel comfortable flying five, 10 or more hours with untested and potentially sick people seated around them. In order to attract more visitors, it is critical for the state to require airlines to implement mandatory preflight testing on all out-of-state flights. This should also be beneficial to the airlines’ business and the well-being of their staff.
Lo-Li Chih
Keaau
