±Recent Visitors

Recent Visitors to Com-Central!

±User Info-big


Welcome Anonymous

Nickname
Password

Membership:
Latest: HighestAce
New Today: 0
New Yesterday: 0
Overall: 6648

People Online:
Members: 0
Visitors: 595
Total: 595
Who Is Where:
 Visitors:
01: Home
02: Community Forums
03: Member Screenshots
04: Member Screenshots
05: Community Forums
06: Downloads
07: Home
08: Community Forums
09: Home
10: Home
11: Home
12: Community Forums
13: Community Forums
14: Community Forums
15: Member Screenshots
16: Community Forums
17: Community Forums
18: Home
19: Photo Gallery
20: Community Forums
21: Home
22: Photo Gallery
23: Home
24: Member Screenshots
25: Community Forums
26: Community Forums
27: Community Forums
28: News Archive
29: Home
30: Community Forums
31: Community Forums
32: Member Screenshots
33: Member Screenshots
34: Home
35: Community Forums
36: Community Forums
37: Photo Gallery
38: Home
39: Home
40: Community Forums
41: Home
42: Home
43: Community Forums
44: Home
45: Photo Gallery
46: Community Forums
47: Photo Gallery
48: Member Screenshots
49: Home
50: Community Forums
51: Community Forums
52: Member Screenshots
53: Home
54: Home
55: Community Forums
56: Community Forums
57: Home
58: Community Forums
59: Photo Gallery
60: Member Screenshots
61: Photo Gallery
62: News Archive
63: Member Screenshots
64: News Archive
65: Community Forums
66: Member Screenshots
67: Member Screenshots
68: Home
69: Home
70: News
71: Community Forums
72: Home
73: News Archive
74: Home
75: Home
76: Community Forums
77: Photo Gallery
78: Home
79: Photo Gallery
80: Statistics
81: Community Forums
82: Community Forums
83: Your Account
84: Photo Gallery
85: Community Forums
86: Community Forums
87: Community Forums
88: Community Forums
89: Community Forums
90: Home
91: Community Forums
92: Downloads
93: Community Forums
94: Home
95: Home
96: Home
97: Photo Gallery
98: Home
99: Home
100: Community Forums
101: Home
102: Your Account
103: Community Forums
104: Community Forums
105: Community Forums
106: Community Forums
107: Home
108: Community Forums
109: Home
110: Photo Gallery
111: Community Forums
112: News Archive
113: Tell a Friend
114: Photo Gallery
115: Member Screenshots
116: Community Forums
117: Community Forums
118: Photo Gallery
119: Photo Gallery
120: Home
121: Community Forums
122: Member Screenshots
123: Community Forums
124: Community Forums
125: Home
126: Community Forums
127: Community Forums
128: Home
129: Community Forums
130: Photo Gallery
131: Home
132: News Archive
133: Home
134: Home
135: Downloads
136: Community Forums
137: Community Forums
138: Home
139: Member Screenshots
140: Community Forums
141: Community Forums
142: Community Forums
143: Home
144: Community Forums
145: Home
146: Community Forums
147: Home
148: Member Screenshots
149: Member Screenshots
150: Home
151: Photo Gallery
152: Photo Gallery
153: Home
154: Photo Gallery
155: Community Forums
156: Home
157: Community Forums
158: Home
159: Member Screenshots
160: Community Forums
161: Community Forums
162: Photo Gallery
163: Home
164: Photo Gallery
165: Community Forums
166: Home
167: Community Forums
168: Photo Gallery
169: Community Forums
170: Community Forums
171: Home
172: Home
173: Community Forums
174: Community Forums
175: Community Forums
176: Photo Gallery
177: Community Forums
178: Community Forums
179: Home
180: Community Forums
181: Community Forums
182: Community Forums
183: Community Forums
184: Downloads
185: Downloads
186: Photo Gallery
187: Photo Gallery
188: Downloads
189: Photo Gallery
190: News
191: Home
192: Statistics
193: Community Forums
194: Community Forums
195: Home
196: Community Forums
197: Home
198: Community Forums
199: Home
200: Community Forums
201: Member Screenshots
202: Home
203: Home
204: Community Forums
205: Photo Gallery
206: Community Forums
207: Home
208: Photo Gallery
209: Home
210: Community Forums
211: Photo Gallery
212: Community Forums
213: Photo Gallery
214: Community Forums
215: Member Screenshots
216: Community Forums
217: Community Forums
218: Community Forums
219: Community Forums
220: Photo Gallery
221: Photo Gallery
222: Member Screenshots
223: Community Forums
224: Community Forums
225: Photo Gallery
226: Home
227: Community Forums
228: Community Forums
229: Community Forums
230: Community Forums
231: Community Forums
232: News Archive
233: Search
234: Community Forums
235: Home
236: Home
237: Home
238: Home
239: Home
240: Home
241: Community Forums
242: Home
243: Community Forums
244: Home
245: Home
246: Community Forums
247: Home
248: Home
249: Community Forums
250: Community Forums
251: Statistics
252: Community Forums
253: Community Forums
254: Member Screenshots
255: Community Forums
256: Home
257: Community Forums
258: Community Forums
259: Home
260: Home
261: Community Forums
262: Community Forums
263: Community Forums
264: Community Forums
265: Photo Gallery
266: Community Forums
267: Community Forums
268: Home
269: Home
270: Home
271: Home
272: Photo Gallery
273: Home
274: Community Forums
275: Home
276: Home
277: Community Forums
278: Community Forums
279: Community Forums
280: Community Forums
281: Community Forums
282: Community Forums
283: Community Forums
284: Member Screenshots
285: Community Forums
286: Community Forums
287: Downloads
288: Community Forums
289: Photo Gallery
290: Downloads
291: Home
292: Member Screenshots
293: Community Forums
294: Community Forums
295: Community Forums
296: Community Forums
297: Community Forums
298: Home
299: Photo Gallery
300: Home
301: Community Forums
302: Photo Gallery
303: Community Forums
304: Community Forums
305: Community Forums
306: Community Forums
307: Community Forums
308: Photo Gallery
309: News
310: News Archive
311: Home
312: Photo Gallery
313: Photo Gallery
314: Community Forums
315: Community Forums
316: Community Forums
317: Community Forums
318: Downloads
319: Community Forums
320: Community Forums
321: Home
322: Photo Gallery
323: Downloads
324: Community Forums
325: Home
326: Photo Gallery
327: Home
328: Home
329: Community Forums
330: Home
331: Community Forums
332: Community Forums
333: Community Forums
334: Community Forums
335: Community Forums
336: Photo Gallery
337: Member Screenshots
338: Member Screenshots
339: Home
340: Community Forums
341: Home
342: Home
343: Home
344: Home
345: Community Forums
346: Community Forums
347: Community Forums
348: Community Forums
349: Community Forums
350: Home
351: Home
352: Community Forums
353: Community Forums
354: Community Forums
355: Community Forums
356: Community Forums
357: Home
358: Tell a Friend
359: Home
360: Downloads
361: Community Forums
362: Photo Gallery
363: Home
364: Community Forums
365: Photo Gallery
366: Home
367: Community Forums
368: Home
369: Home
370: Home
371: Home
372: Community Forums
373: Community Forums
374: Home
375: Home
376: Community Forums
377: Community Forums
378: Home
379: Photo Gallery
380: Downloads
381: Home
382: Community Forums
383: Community Forums
384: Home
385: Community Forums
386: Community Forums
387: Community Forums
388: Community Forums
389: Community Forums
390: Community Forums
391: Community Forums
392: Community Forums
393: Statistics
394: Downloads
395: Community Forums
396: Community Forums
397: Community Forums
398: Downloads
399: Community Forums
400: Community Forums
401: Home
402: Community Forums
403: Home
404: Member Screenshots
405: Downloads
406: Community Forums
407: Community Forums
408: Community Forums
409: Home
410: Community Forums
411: Community Forums
412: Photo Gallery
413: Community Forums
414: Community Forums
415: Home
416: Home
417: Photo Gallery
418: Community Forums
419: Photo Gallery
420: Community Forums
421: Community Forums
422: Community Forums
423: Your Account
424: Photo Gallery
425: Home
426: Community Forums
427: Community Forums
428: Member Screenshots
429: Home
430: Community Forums
431: Photo Gallery
432: Community Forums
433: Downloads
434: Home
435: Community Forums
436: Home
437: Photo Gallery
438: Community Forums
439: Community Forums
440: Home
441: Home
442: Community Forums
443: Downloads
444: Community Forums
445: Community Forums
446: Community Forums
447: Photo Gallery
448: Home
449: Home
450: Community Forums
451: Member Screenshots
452: Community Forums
453: Home
454: Home
455: Member Screenshots
456: Community Forums
457: Community Forums
458: Home
459: Community Forums
460: Community Forums
461: Member Screenshots
462: Community Forums
463: Community Forums
464: Member Screenshots
465: Community Forums
466: Home
467: Community Forums
468: Home
469: Community Forums
470: Home
471: Community Forums
472: Home
473: Home
474: Home
475: Community Forums
476: Home
477: Home
478: Home
479: Home
480: Member Screenshots
481: Photo Gallery
482: Photo Gallery
483: Downloads
484: Photo Gallery
485: Community Forums
486: Community Forums
487: Community Forums
488: Home
489: Photo Gallery
490: Community Forums
491: Community Forums
492: Home
493: Photo Gallery
494: Photo Gallery
495: Community Forums
496: Community Forums
497: Home
498: Downloads
499: Community Forums
500: Home
501: Community Forums
502: Community Forums
503: Tell a Friend
504: Community Forums
505: Home
506: Home
507: Home
508: Home
509: Community Forums
510: Community Forums
511: Community Forums
512: Home
513: Photo Gallery
514: Photo Gallery
515: Photo Gallery
516: Photo Gallery
517: Photo Gallery
518: Photo Gallery
519: Community Forums
520: Community Forums
521: Community Forums
522: Community Forums
523: Community Forums
524: Photo Gallery
525: Photo Gallery
526: Community Forums
527: Statistics
528: Community Forums
529: Community Forums
530: Community Forums
531: Member Screenshots
532: Photo Gallery
533: Community Forums
534: Community Forums
535: Community Forums
536: Home
537: Community Forums
538: Community Forums
539: Community Forums
540: Community Forums
541: Photo Gallery
542: Community Forums
543: Community Forums
544: Photo Gallery
545: Member Screenshots
546: Home
547: Home
548: Home
549: Photo Gallery
550: Photo Gallery
551: Statistics
552: Home
553: Community Forums
554: Photo Gallery
555: Home
556: Home
557: Community Forums
558: Photo Gallery
559: Home
560: Photo Gallery
561: Photo Gallery
562: News Archive
563: Home
564: Community Forums
565: Home
566: Photo Gallery
567: Community Forums
568: Photo Gallery
569: Home
570: Photo Gallery
571: Community Forums
572: Photo Gallery
573: Community Forums
574: Photo Gallery
575: Community Forums
576: Community Forums
577: Downloads
578: Community Forums
579: Community Forums
580: Home
581: Photo Gallery
582: Home
583: Community Forums
584: Community Forums
585: Photo Gallery
586: Community Forums
587: Community Forums
588: Community Forums
589: Photo Gallery
590: Community Forums
591: Home
592: Downloads
593: Community Forums
594: Community Forums
595: Community Forums

Staff Online:

No staff members are online!
No left turns..... :: Archived
A general meeting place for all pilots!
Post new topic    Revive this topic    Printer Friendly Page     Forum Index ›  Officer's Club

Topic Archived View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
JG300-Ascout
Power User

Offline Offline
Joined: Jan 05, 2005
Posts: 6258
Location: Cyberspace
PostPosted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 2:17 pm
Post subject: No left turns.....

This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small, and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Well worth reading. And a few good laughs are guaranteed.
___________________________________________________________

My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car. He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.

"In those days," he told me when he was in his 90's, "to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it."

At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in: "Oh, bull----!" she said. "He hit a horse."

"Well," my father said, "there was that, too."

So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none.

My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines, would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home.

If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.

My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would explain, and

That was that. But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one."

It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.

But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown. It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car.

Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother. So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, and a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving.

The cemetery probably was my father's idea.
"Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying once.

For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.

Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage. (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)

He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustine's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning.

If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home. If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow."

After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio.

In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored."

If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream.

As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a long life?"

"I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.

"No left turns," he said.

"What?" I asked.

"No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in, happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic. As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn."

"What?" I said again.

"No left turns," he said. "Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights."

"You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support.

"No," she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works." But then she added: "Except when your father loses count."

I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing. "Loses count?" I asked.

"Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again."

I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked.

"No," he said. "If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week."

My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90. She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102. They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)

He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.

One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news. A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred." At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer."

"You're probably right," I said.

"Why would you say that?" He countered, somewhat irritated.

"Because you're 102 years old," I said.

"Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day.

That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night. He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet."

An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:

"I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have." A short time later, he died.

I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.

I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life

Or because he quit taking left turns.

_________________
"All facts go to clearly prove that Shades is a thrice-cursed traitor & mentally deranged person steeped in inveterate enmity toward mankind"
Back to top
View user's profile Photo Gallery
Shades
Forum Tree-Rat

Offline Offline
Joined: Mar 07, 2005
Posts: 6481
Location: 3rd Branch up, 'Ye Olde Oak', Green Wood.
PostPosted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 2:33 pm
Post subject: Re: No left turns.....

Love that style of writing.
I wanted to be a journalist when I was at college because of it.
Unfortunately I learned about tabloid journalism and quit, disillusioned, instead.

_________________
Skwerl's place.

Com-Central's cutest, fluffiest, twitchiest, tail.
CPU > Intel i9-9900k (o/c 4.9GHz); COOLING > BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 4;
MOBO > ASUS PRIME Z390-A; RAM > 2x32GB Corsair LPX 2666MHz;
GPU > Gigabyte GEFORCE GTX650Ti PCI-e 3.0 2Gb GDDR5;
AUDIO > Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music (plus - Universal Audio UAD2 Quad Custom accelerator);
HDD > 3x1TB+ M.2. SSDs; LCD > DELL - S2419HGF (1920x1080);
PSU > 650W be quiet Straight Power 11 - 80+ Gold;
CASE > BeQuiet! SILENT BASE 601; OS > Windows 11 Home Advanced (64-bit).
Back to top
View user's profile Visit poster's website ICQ Number
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic    Revive this topic    Printer Friendly Page    Forum Index ›  Officer's Club
Page 1 of 1
All times are GMT - 6 Hours

Archive Revive
Username:
This is an archived topic - your reply will not be appended here.
Instead, a new topic will be generated in the active forum.
The new topic will provide a reference link to this archived topic.