Reduced speed ahead :(

Our synagogue's senior maintenance staffer has been with the shul for over two decades, and is always concerned about the well-being of the congregants.  "He shouldn't be walking home by himself," said the staffer regarding a Saturday-afternoon regular who'd recently been hospitalized.  So we volunteered to escort him home, and it's a good thing--it turns out that his night vision is quite impaired.  We now have a steady gig walking him home every Saturday night after Arvit/Maariv (Evening Service).

Then there's the Saturday-morning regular who always used to get to shul even earlier than I do despite being old enough to be my mother, but who has been limited lately by serious mobility problems, and hasn't been to synagogue in several weeks.  The latest plan is for the senior maintenance staffer to serve as a volunteer "driver"--not for the first time--and bring her to shul next Shabbat morning via "wheelchair express."

This could very well be our future.  (:

In the meantime, my husband and I are now running an escort service (for a night-blind senior), and our shul's senior maintenance staffer is a pusher (of mobility-impaired persons in wheelchairs).  There goes the neighborhood.  :)