Why I'm Still Driving

Why I'm Still Driving

Some would say driving here is not for the faint of heart.  It's a resort community, so there are always visitors hunting for clues that might lead them to their destinations.  Worse yet, it's a retirement community.  Many who visited regularly with their families when they were young, returned to live full time where they so enjoyed visiting for too short a time in years past.

Not content to leave a difficult situation alone, the city fathers, or perhaps the developers--embarrassed at the environmental damage that massive migration here by both of he groups mentioned above simply had to cause--sought to maintain the appearance of the island's unspoiled appeal.  They created rules that limited the size and location of signs, restricted the outdoor lighting, forbade the cutting of trees without a permit--not just cutting down trees, but the mere trimming of a tree or trees.  Now, think about that for a minute.  Tourists driving onto the island in the dark, after driving for eight to fifteen hours to get here, now have to find their way without the benefit of a visible sign, or a well-lit, broad avenue.  Think also of the senior citizens, no longer confident in their night time eyesight, driving slowly down the road headed for home.

Now add to that the fact that the leading cause of fatal accidents is not speed, nor is it driving while intoxicated, or even road rage.  It is, quite simply, distracted driving, not paying attention to where they are going.  It's true.  How is that scenario of the arriving visitor fitting that profile?  From "when are we gonna get there, Daddy," to "I really have to go," to "where is that blasted sign?" to "you just missed it, you were supposed to turn right there!"  Driven to distraction, impaired by fatigue and eyestrain, it's a wonder they make it at all.  Then there are the seniors, ambling along at thirty in a forty-five zone, in the left lane of course.  Must have been gabbing with their passengers, or telling a story they could still picture at this very moment, otherwise, how do you explain the sudden right turn from the left lane?  Did you know also that senior citizens and teenagers are the two most dangerous age-groups behind the wheel?

Here, we have a median age nearly twice that of the nation, and we have more than two million visitors each year.  Why aren't we all dying off in car accidents, or at least driven crazy by the act of driving?  I think it's "adaptation."  Local drivers have developed the ability to shrug it off, to notice the out-of-state tags and be wary of their next move.  Who knows when his wife (or her husband) will yell, "There's your turn, right there!" and the startled driver will turn without warning from the opposite lane, or cut you off as you approach the intersection and he turns left in front of
us.

We've learned to nod and smile in disbelief when the geezer in front of them rolls along at thirty in the left lane.  If we are lucky, he will slow down, move into the right lane a few blocks before his turn, and leave his turn signal on for several blocks.  He will tap the brakes at each driveway or street in case it's the one where he has to turn.  Then, when he gets to his turn, he stomps on the brakes in the traffic lane, nearly coming to a full stop in the traffic lane before making his right turn.  Or, while rolling along in the left lane, he will notice his turn is right here--and he'll cut straight across without applying his brakes at all, proving he can turn at thirty just as well as at five miles per hour.

When locals get together, they will tell about the latest crazy move someone made in the road recently.  By developing this penchant for gathering our "I can top that"stories, we have improved our awareness of the drivers around us, and we are better for it.  We are not distracted, we are focused on defensive driving.  We learn to anticipate and be prepared for even the craziest of moves, like the driver coming out of a two-lane street that is divided by a parkway of grass and shrubs who has failed to notice he was supposed to cross that parkway before turning and is now driving the wrong way on a one way street, and wait until you see what they will do to extricate themselves from that situation!

But, back to my personal situation.  I have, in the past eleven years, developed that sense of defensive anticipation more keenly than most people driving in "normal" cities and towns.  Even as I pass Paul McCartney's long ago measuring stick for being really old--a new stanza has been added  to the lyrics--

and when I'm so old, just barely alive, 

will you still keep on letting me drive?  

will you still trust me, 

sure you won't bust me 

when I'm sixty-four?   

I'm still out there driving, and sooner or later, people will be shaking their heads at how I drive.  But I'm thinking most of them are conditioned to look out for geezers like me.  As long as I don't leave the island, I think I'll be able to drive while staying alive.

Mental Floss

Mental Floss

It came to me as I was flossing my teeth this morning.  Yes, I floss my teeth every morning.  It's one of those healthy things that I kept doing long enough that it became a habit.   If I fail to do it, it haunts me the rest of the day, really.  This can be awkward at certain times as I have good-sized hands and a smallish mouth (this is the  physical quality of space within the cheeks and behind the lips, so to speak, not what some might perceive as a too large quantity of words that emanate therefrom).  But back to the observation that came along.  I had my hands halfway in my mouth and some floss pulled down between the last couple of molars back there, and I could not get my hands to move the floss any way at all.  I stood there a moment then managed to move my hands out of my mouth and started over at the other end of my mouth.  Everything worked fine after that, not so remarkable, but it set me to thinking, probably somewhat earlier than I should have.

One of the opportunities I have been afforded in this life (thank you, Kaitlen--things the old Jim might characterize as weaknesses and/or defects are really just opportunities) is dealing with the disruption of the messaging system between my brain and my muscles.  As it's been described to me, nerves are just telegraph lines (Oh, come on Jim--this is the 21st century, call them fiber optic cables for the analogy, for heaven's sake!)....  OK, the nerves are just a sort of network of fiber optic cables that carry messages from the brain to the muscles, mostly without conscious thought.   You might decide to get out of bed, for example, and once your brain has received that message, the part of the brain that governs unconscious movement sends hundreds, maybe thousands of signals to get your hand to grasp the sheet and or blanket, to begin pulling it off your upper body, telling each of your legs to slide up toward your upper body, and your toes to search for the open space to escape from the covers, telling your hips to turn in the direction of the open side of the bed, telling your hands to help raise your head and shoulder off the mattress, while telling your legs to move still further to find the edge of the mattress, and pushing your trunk upright, then executing a swivel in the direction of that open side of the bed, then dropping one leg at a time down off the edge of the bed, while trying to sense the approaching floor so they don't just crash to the floor, and so on and so on....  Each of those movements required hundreds of messages to be sent from the brain to the muscles and from the muscle to the brain.  Probably the only thought you had was, "I've got to get up."  Your brain unconsciously does the rest.

Well, the chemicals that carry these messages have to come from somewhere, don't they?  So, your brain has a place that manufactures those chemicals (in this case, dopamine).  Mine slowed way down, and only provides a trickle of them around for my brain to use.  At the same time, there has to be a receptor in each of your muscles to receive and translate those messages into making the muscles move.  These receptors have to work harder to sense that trickle of dopamine (sort of like straining to hear something, I'd guess).  As a result, the receptors wear out prematurely.  They can be replaced, but your brain and nervous system only create new ones when demand is created by vigorous activity.   Hence, it is important for people like me to exercise vigorously on a daily basis and vary the kinds of activity we engage in so that new receptors are activated and fresh, new connections are made.  If you run into something that won't move when you want it to, you try doing it slightly differently or more consciously, since the conscious movements are controlled by another part of the brain.  (Whew! That part's over.  I don't think my neurologist would grant me this much poetic license to describe this condition, but what she doesn't know won't hurt her in this case).

In any event, it occurred to me that our citizenry ( or society, country, species, life form--whatever collective term you might choose to apply), might just benefit from a similar approach.  If one approach doesn't convey the message the way we intended it, try another way.  Don't just repeat the same slogan until it becomes meaningless (what does the mantra, "no new taxes" mean anyway?  No new ones at all, or just increases in licensing fees instead?  And do we really want "universal health care" whatever the cost?)  Secondly, why not have each part of the body politic try some vigorous exercise, as in thoughtful debate on a regular basis, instead of repeatedly sending the same slogans to the worn out ears (receptors) of the rest of us.  Maybe all that activity could cause some new receptors to activate and get some things moving.  OK, it was before I had my morning coffee, but there it is.