It was a balmy Saturday morning in Chapel Hill, a relaxed time for farmers' markets and yard sales. Several of us had parked along Kenan Street for an interesting sale in the historic building on the corner.

If there were "No Parking" signs, I certainly didn't see them. And even if there were, it was a Saturday and it was a yard sale, for God's sake.

While we were inside, an overzealous meter man gleefully wrote out $50 tickets and posted them on a dozen different windshields.

If he had done the small-town considerate thing, he would have come inside and said, "Hey, folks, you're going to have to move your cars." I have seen policemen do this many times at the Chapel Hill Library when cars were parked illegally at book sales.

But, no, this guy saw no reason to be decent about it. Most of us were senior citizens on very fixed incomes, and paying that ticket will represent a real hardship for us. One thing for sure, it would never have happened in Carrboro, where even the traffic enforcement people are good neighbors.

Perry Deane Young

Chapel Hill