DAYDREAMING SENIOR GALLS DRIVERS  


 

Having always despised driving, I finally quit cold turkey after I retired and moved from Omaha to New York City, a town deemed pedestrian-friendly.


How could I lose? I’ve always loved walking. Do I miss driving? Sure I do. Like I miss dandruff. Believe me, I served a tortuous sentence behind the wheel. Iʼm quite the deep thinker who’s always been blessed (and cursed) with a twisted subliminal twin I call Subby who romps, rages and rides the rails inside my beautiful mind.


Subby simply takes over while I ponder world-saving issues. In my driving days, Subby, not I, piloted the vehicle, allowing me to explore my deepest thoughts. While gliding through the mean streets of Omaha, I would constantly find my pensive little self to be the innocent recipient of pointed remarks, delivered by a number of the townʼs surplus of sourpuss drivers. 


Obviously, they resented an authentic thinkerʼs searching the deepest recesses of his redundant mind. Invariably interrupted while cogitating, I would “come to” as someone honked and flipped me the bird. Genius is so rarely understood in its own time.


My God, what was the big deal with these incensed simpletons anyway? Itʼs not like my alter ego drove recklessly. For 40 years I was never directly involved in an accident though, in retrospect, I do recall hearing a lot of crashing sounds behind me after absently speeding through intersections. 


But alas came the day when three cars crashed into my Dodge Durango during a moment of powerful contemplations. With the ambulance siren blasting while toting my bleeding body to the ER, an epiphany popped into my nimble noggin: Go East, old man, go East. Soon thereafter, I threw in the bloody towel, retired from driving forever and headed to the Big Apple.


Now as a New Yorker, I’ve pathetically morphed from misunderstood driver to what some might deem masochistic pedestrian. Wouldn’t you know, New York drivers immediately enforced their zero-tolerance policy for old fogies meandering the Big Apple in a state of entranced reflections. 


If New York drivers find my walking style so annoying, think how their own precious multitasking grates on my nerves. Forget eating, chatting, texting and sexting while driving. Recently, I watched in horror as a young man painted his toenails while zigzagging down Seventh Avenue.


I concede defeat on both walking and driving. I need a new challenge. One of my heirʼs suggested my taking up a “safer activity, such as skydiving.”


Ah, flying through the uncrowded sky with no one to distract my thinking. Skydiving? Yep. Definitely. I need something less risky than driving and walking. Fur sure. I need skydiving.


Like I need diarrhea.


— Steve Eskew


Thank God Liberal Arts courses are so easy. Even retired businessman Steve Eskew received a pair of master’s degrees in both dramatic arts and communication studies from the University of Nebraska at Omaha after he turned 50. When asked to take over a professor’s theater column at The Daily Nonpareil in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Steve began a career as a quasi-journalist. Narrowly by the luck of the Irish, this led to numerous publications including theater and book reviews, profiles and Steve’s favorite genre, humor writing. Check out other Eskew columns at Erma Bombeck Workshop: http://humorwriters.org/ Daydreaming Senior Galls Drivers

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