Youth Opinion : The Law in a Stern Blue Uniform

“What does the law mean to you?” was the question that Western State University posed to a group of Orange County students. Below is the winning essay by LINDA WECHSLER, who graduated this year from Fullerton’s Sunny Hills High School and plans to attend UC Berkeley.

Law is very similar to a meter maid. But the “traffic and parking controller” that we have today. Rather, I see law personified in a very stern and judgmental woman clad in a trim dark blue uniform, pen and tickets in hand.

Law has a sense for time and location, sniffing out injustice just as the meter maid searches for cars whose meters have expired. Law scolds us like children, reminding us that forgetfulness and irresponsibility have a price. Law is direct and unswerving, as is the meter maid who writes tickets while rolling her eyes at pleas for forgiveness or petty excuses.

Observing the meter maid from a distance, she seems foreboding, maybe even a little bit threatening. But, like law, she is still distinctly human underneath her guise of formality and conservatism. The meter maid keeps in mind that time is money and money is time, embodying the economic concerns of the law. She is used to uniform dress and gives and responds to commands with military precision. Law sees no one but the lawbreakers and cares not what race, color or creed they are--sustaining the meter maid’s objectivity of not knowing who an illegally parked car belongs to.

Law, to me, is best represented by one who works for it, just like an ordinary meter maid.