A GREAT article for us "Car Guys"......

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pdgriesse
Posts: 40
Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2019 11:59 am
First Name: Paul
Last Name: Griesse
* REQUIRED* Type and Year of Model Ts owned: 1912 touring 1924 touring
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A GREAT article for us "Car Guys"......

Post by pdgriesse » Wed Sep 09, 2020 10:10 am

Not Model T but at funny read for most FORUM Members......hope you enjoy!!! Paul



---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------

Subject: "ENJOY LIFE NOW - IT HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE!"

From:

Date: Mon, September 7, 2020 2:47 pm

To:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------



>

> 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.

> It is well worth reading. A few good chuckles 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 90s, "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, baloney, 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, 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 more than 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."

>

> Life is too short to wake up with regrets.

>

> So love the people who treat you right.

>

> Forget about the one's who don't.

>

> Believe everything happens for a reason.

>

> If you get a chance,take it & if it changes your life, let it.

>

> Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely

be worth it."

>

> ENJOY LIFE NOW - IT HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE!



ers....


Dennis Prince
Posts: 344
Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2019 2:36 pm
First Name: Dennis
Last Name: Prince
* REQUIRED* Type and Year of Model Ts owned: 1)24 touring 2)25 TT's 1)26 roadster 2)26 tourings 1) 26coupe 1)27 funster 1)28 A pick up
Location: Madras Oregon
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Board Member Since: 1999

Re: A GREAT article for us "Car Guys"......

Post by Dennis Prince » Wed Sep 09, 2020 10:39 am

Thanks Paul, Reading this article was a great way to start my day and I am sure it will be a better day because of it.


Burger in Spokane
Posts: 2251
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First Name: Brent
Last Name: Burger
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Location: Spokane, Wa.
Board Member Since: 2014

Re: A GREAT article for us "Car Guys"......

Post by Burger in Spokane » Wed Sep 09, 2020 10:56 am

The story "No Left Turns" has been around a long time. Profound stuff in there.
Another different but similarly wonderful one is He's at the Office.
More people are doing it today than ever before !

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Rich Eagle
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Last Name: Eagle
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Location: Idaho Falls, ID
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Contact:

Re: A GREAT article for us "Car Guys"......

Post by Rich Eagle » Wed Sep 09, 2020 11:10 am

Thank you for posting that. It's quite nice.
Rich
When did I do that?

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AdminJeff
Posts: 986
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2019 6:32 pm
First Name: Jeff
Last Name: Stevenson
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Location: Wilder Idaho
MTFCA Number: 50006
Board Member Since: 2017

Re: A GREAT article for us "Car Guys"......

Post by AdminJeff » Wed Sep 23, 2020 11:29 pm

I love this story!

Jeff
Assistant WebSite Admin
1921 Model T Touring, 1930 Model A Roadster
Voltage Regulators, Starter & Generator Repair
www.modeltregulators.com
www.modeltstarters.com


frontyboy
Posts: 303
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First Name: dick
Last Name: dock
* REQUIRED* Type and Year of Model Ts owned: T sprint cars
Location: locchoy wa

Re: A GREAT article for us "Car Guys"......

Post by frontyboy » Sun Nov 01, 2020 11:37 pm

Really enjoyed your story. Lots of truth in it. I just lost my wife of 25 years and while I have no regrets of what I woulda shoulda done I am at peace that we had a damn good life together. While I do drive, she always drove us where we were going, and I was very comfortable with her behind the wheel. She did however make left turns with no accidents.

I can say take your time look around smell the roses and talk to each other and tell your significant other you care for them and enjoy your time together. A week before my wife died at 66, she told me how she appreciated the little things I did for her and now that makes my life a little bit easier.

just sayin;

brasscarguy

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John Warren
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* REQUIRED* Type and Year of Model Ts owned: 14 Roadster, 25 Pickup , 26 Canadian Touring , and a 24-28 TA race car
Location: Henderson, Nevada

Re: A GREAT article for us "Car Guys"......

Post by John Warren » Tue Nov 10, 2020 11:28 am

Nice story and thanks Dick for sharing.
24-28 TA race car, 26 Canadian touring, 25 Roadster pickup, 14 Roadster, and 11AB Maxwell runabout
Keep it simple and keep a good junk pile if you want to invent something :P

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