Boomer
04-20-2008, 12:25 PM
Here on TOTV, every once in awhile, topics turn to the accidents and near-accidents there in TV. Golf carts and cars can be a dangerous and even deadly mix. There is a lot of confusion in the roundabouts it seems. And you are always going to have those drivers with short fuses and a sense of entitlement like everywhere else.
My guess is that there is another contributory factor to those driving problems in TV. And that factor may be in a larger percentage than it is elsewhere.
I know that many here have already faced those circumstances in life where the child must become the parent and the parent must become the child. There is nothing easy about doing that, from either perspective.
I wrote somewhere once in one of these threads about the real struggle we had with Mr. Boomer's dear father and the Oldsmobile keys.
Mr. Boomer, Sr. was strongly independent and his mind was sharp, but his body was betraying him. Throw in that old saying that we use in our family, "You can always tell a German, but you can't tell him much," and it will give you some idea of what we went through. And I know that so many of you can relate.
He had some vision problems that had developed that he neglected to tell anybody about right away.
When we found out, the first question was, "Why are you still driving?"
His answer to us, "I can see shapes."
Well, the vision problem was corrected and so he kept driving.
But then he developed peripheral neuropathy. That is a condition that diabetics can develop and it can cause them to lose feeling in their feet. There were times when he could not distinguish the brake pedal from the gas pedal. And there were accidents. One involved the wall between the garage and the house. No one was sitting on the family room couch at the time or the accident could have been deadly.
The car keys are a symbol of freedom, whether we are 16 or 85. When I first got mine, I found many reasons to carry that key ring in my hand, swinging it around for the world to see. (You know you did, too.)
To have to take the freedom of the car keys away is not fun.
And I am afraid that the perception of driving a golf cart is that you can just do it forever, whether you can feel your feet or see just should make no difference whatsoever. And my guess is that fewer adult kids think about or want to think about wrestling for the golf cart keys.
So please watch out for each other there in TV. Because my guess is that when the kids visit, they are not coming to wrestle for the keys. They are there to have fun, too.
Boomer
My guess is that there is another contributory factor to those driving problems in TV. And that factor may be in a larger percentage than it is elsewhere.
I know that many here have already faced those circumstances in life where the child must become the parent and the parent must become the child. There is nothing easy about doing that, from either perspective.
I wrote somewhere once in one of these threads about the real struggle we had with Mr. Boomer's dear father and the Oldsmobile keys.
Mr. Boomer, Sr. was strongly independent and his mind was sharp, but his body was betraying him. Throw in that old saying that we use in our family, "You can always tell a German, but you can't tell him much," and it will give you some idea of what we went through. And I know that so many of you can relate.
He had some vision problems that had developed that he neglected to tell anybody about right away.
When we found out, the first question was, "Why are you still driving?"
His answer to us, "I can see shapes."
Well, the vision problem was corrected and so he kept driving.
But then he developed peripheral neuropathy. That is a condition that diabetics can develop and it can cause them to lose feeling in their feet. There were times when he could not distinguish the brake pedal from the gas pedal. And there were accidents. One involved the wall between the garage and the house. No one was sitting on the family room couch at the time or the accident could have been deadly.
The car keys are a symbol of freedom, whether we are 16 or 85. When I first got mine, I found many reasons to carry that key ring in my hand, swinging it around for the world to see. (You know you did, too.)
To have to take the freedom of the car keys away is not fun.
And I am afraid that the perception of driving a golf cart is that you can just do it forever, whether you can feel your feet or see just should make no difference whatsoever. And my guess is that fewer adult kids think about or want to think about wrestling for the golf cart keys.
So please watch out for each other there in TV. Because my guess is that when the kids visit, they are not coming to wrestle for the keys. They are there to have fun, too.
Boomer