secret of a long life?...No left turns

[Guest guest]

This is a wonderful piece by Gartner, editor ofnewspapers large and small and president of NBC News. In 1997,he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. It is wellworth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed. Heregoes... /****My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. Ishould say I never saw him drive a car.He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and thelast car he drove was a 1926 Whippet."In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drivea car you had to do things with your hands, and do things withyour feet, and look every which way, and I decided you couldwalk 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 shit!" 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. Theneighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green1941Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but wehad none.My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , would take thestreetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. Ifhe took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I wouldwalk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walkhome together.My brother, , was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938,and sometimes, at

dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighborshad cars but we had none. "No one in the family drives," mymother would explain, and that was that.But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one ofyou boys turns 16, we'll get one." It was as if he wasn't surewhich one of us would turn 16 first.But, sure enough , my brother turned 16 before I did, so in1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend whoran 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, itmore or less became my brother's car.Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother myfather, but it didn't make sense to my mother.So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend toteach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the placewhere I learned to

drive the following year and where, ageneration later, I took my two sons to practice driving. Thecemetery probably was my father's idea. "Who can your motherhurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying more than once.For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother wasthe driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had anysense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though theyseldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator.It seemed to work.Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was adevout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, anarrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them throughtheir 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 thenext 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St.Augustin's

Church.She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would waitin the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests wason duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then wouldgo out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end ofthe service and walking her home.If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walkand then head back to the church. He called the priests "FatherFast" and "Father Slow."After he retired, my father almost always accompanied mymother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason togo along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit inthe car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, haveher keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs gameon the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'dexplain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second basemade a bad throw to the

millionaire on first base, so themultimillionaire on third base scored."If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along tocarry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on icecream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when hewas 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do youwant to know the secret of a long life?""I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be somethingbizarre."No left turns," he said."What?" I asked."No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your motherand I read an article that said most accidents that old peopleare in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic.As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can loseyour depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decidednever again to make a left turn.""What?" I said again."No left turns," he said. "Think about

it.. Three rights arethe same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always makethree 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 asI started laughing."Loses count?" I asked."Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it'snot 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 andcall it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important itcan't be put off another day or another week."My mother was never in an accident, but one evening shehanded 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 thenext year, at 102.They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, mybrother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tinybathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would havedied then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly threetimes what he paid for the house.)He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmillwhen he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icysidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of soundmind and sound body until the moment he died.One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with mewhen I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it wasclear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we hadthe usual wide-ranging conversation about politics

andnewspapers and things in the news.A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, thefirst hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred."At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'mprobably 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 nextday.That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit upwith him through the night.He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparentlyseeing us look gloomy, he said:"I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room isdead yet"An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:"I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that Iam in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I

have had as happy alife 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 wonderednow and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky thathe 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! *

living in the cosmic swirl,going round and round,singing my song,Dancing my dance...Stompingelk,