They say the universe is expanding. That should help with the traffic. (Steven Wright)
I wonder how many drivers have made road trips—without wondering what the…heck is that guy doing? One driver is traveling at NASCAR speed and another is moving twenty miles an hour in a fifty-plus zone.
When my younger son was about kindergarten age I turned onto a narrow road behind a woman, obviously elderly. Her shoulders sloped, and her head leaned over the steering wheel. She drove the center yellow line as if she were failing a sobriety test in slow motion.
When I reacted, my youngster responded, “Oh Mom, maybe she just has old-timer’s disease.
I don’t recall how I got around her, or when she turned onto another road. My son’s innocence, however, stays with me.
His simplicity didn’t nullify the lady as a roadway threat. It did help me get through the moment.
Years later, my middle granddaughter was in the car when a driver cut me off with half a foot to spare.
I gasped, but my granddaughter saved the moment again.
“Grandma, is that what’s called a jackass?”
“Bad driver,” I answered.
Unfortunately, not every accident is an almost. Signs above the highway note the statistics.
Today I am driving in the rain. Someone, male or female—it doesn’t matter—passes me on the left over the center line, misses an oncoming car by about a foot, and then repeats the favor with the next car.
Peace, I think. Not in pieces. Someday. Somehow.
(The above is an edited blog from five years ago.)
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terrypetersen 