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Cars

At the beginning of the month, my seven grandchildren were together for a birthday party.  Given the year we’ve hadbeing together was a rare event and they had a great day doing little more than running in the yard.

When together and left to their own devices they have an energy in volume, speed and intertangled mass that I’m certain is the algorithm that NASA needs to put an astronaut on Mars. By the end of the day, my seven-year-old grandson was planning a sleep over with his cousins.  He wants all of them at his cousin’s house for three days. He told his mother it would be like an orphanage.  I laughed. My daughters and sons-in-law expend so much time and energy to make these children feel loved and safe. All the kids want is an orphanage vibe.

A kid’s perspective on an orphanage comes from ANNIE or the various Disney movies, where parents are like the unnamed character in a horror movie and the first ones to die. There can’t be a great adventure if parents are hanging around. I don’t think it’s nefarious. Its kids being kids. It’s kids wanting to stay up all night eating lots of snacks.

I’m certain that age and maturity will fill in the broader understanding of orphans, the comfort of a warm bed and benefits loving parents and a healthy diet. Kids think sleepovers are fun. There’s no need to suck all the magical illusion out of our lives, the world finds a way of doing that for us anyway. Enjoy it while it lasts.

For most people age, maturity and other responsibilities paint a wider, deeper landscape of life. As adults we are painfully aware that making one choices sets off a chain reaction of events. For instance, the purchase of a house means less cash in the bank, less disposable income and a future of repairs and maintenance. Deep down the decision to buy the house inferred acceptance of the bills the go along with it.

No one is exempt from wanting things to go their way, from wanting or saying something stupid. In frustration I have made suggestions to myself and few others in the room, that as soon as the words left my lips, I knew I was being shortsighted and foolish.  I realized my folly and rejoined the real world.

Reading the comments following an online article makes me wonder about reading comprehension, grammar, kindness and the sage adage: If you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all.” I’m a firm believer that the human brain functions as a sieve for the human mouth. It is meant to filter out and refine thoughts. 

For many people it’s not working that way. With a keyboard in front of them, many people are willing to upchuck the most ridiculous and often thoughtless statements and share them with the world.

Recent comments evolve around cars both how to drive them and where to park them.  Gone are the days of the idyllic Sunday drive for the family.  Welcome to the age of hurry up we gotta go to work or drop off or pick up the kids. Engines are roaring and the birds are a flippin.’ At the end of the day parking that vehicle is a blood pressure raising event. Where to park? Who has the right to park where they parked?  Again, the birds start flipping and the other fingers are a pointing in all directions.

Transportation research states that the number of cars on the road has more than doubled since 1970. Older neighborhoods were built before many people even owned a car, driveways were rare and narrow.

I can hear the rumble of objections even as I type: those neighbors… or the town should…

However, these marks of an older neighborhood are evident to the naked eye. Older neighborhoods are landlocked. The parking space in front of a house can’t be stretched out to fit another car.

Okay, take another moment for the rumble of objections: those neighbors… or the town should…

Now what. My other grandson who believes in afternoon snack. It’s been a family ritual for several generations. It is served around three o’clock.  If he is denied afternoon snack because it’s not yet two o’clock, he’ll have a snack.  In his six-year-old mind he thinks afternoon snack is an entirely different category of eating. It isn’t. I get what he is trying to do. His immature reasoning is all about him.

Full disclosure, I no longer own a car. I don’t miss parking it, or the repairs or that annoying little light that indicates a tire is losing air. I’m aware that I chose to be here in this town. Although I made that choice decades ago, I know I live in an old land locked town. It has it’s good points.

Frustration gnaws at us.  Frustration clouds reason and then it explodes. The worst part is that frustration solves nothing because the problem is without a traditional solution. In fact, it is almost guaranteed that parking spaces will diminish, given the growing number and size of cars and designated handicapped parking spaces.

Insufficient parking isn’t a choice that anyone would make but whether on purpose or by default the choice was made to live in an older neighborhood. So until a sidewalk stretcher is invented consider developing a new perspective. My fantasy, following my grandchildren’s vision of magical worlds, is to take a walk out in the evening stopping in a different local eatery each time.

Anyone up for a walk?