The Need For Speed, Or Not

By Jeremy Gulley

When my brother and I were kids, we loved riding in the car with my dad. He had two speeds, as-fast-as-this-thing-will-go and stop. On the highway, we would pretend we were in a car race, zooming past the other cars; picking them off one by one. We always won, because my dad was in control.

The radio was always on full blast, too. As loud as it could go, whatever radio station the tuner was on played loudly as we flew along the road.

In his younger days, he told me he and his friends would work on their cars during any available free time. They would work to make the cars faster, louder, then faster and louder again. He mentioned at least 5 tickets for speeding and noise violations from his younger days.

As an adult, the love of cars remained. He didn’t work on them as much, but certainly did enjoy driving, and driving fast. Working for Southwestern Bell gave him opportunity to work out his skills for a living. Though he couldn’t drive fast while working, he still had opportunities to make his presence known.

Once, when a teenage boy pulled beside him at a stop sign, radio turned up to some pop station, my dad turned his radio to an old-time country station, turned on the amplification system that was installed in his truck (including exterior speakers) and successfully drowned out the young man.

But now, as an older man, the sounds and speed of my dad’s car have changed. I recently drove his car to run some errands, and the radio was turned to talk radio. Not any talk radio, but some talk radio that I had never heard where some guy was complaining about the amount of paper his kids go through at home. That was not the worst part. The worst part was the volume – which can only be described as barely audible. Come on, dad, I thought. What’s this all about?

On Tuesday, to further illustrate the change my dad has gone through; he was pulled over on the highway for going too slow – again. This is the fifth time now that my dad, the speed demon of Miami County has been pulled over for going too slow.

The offense this time was given for going the embarrassingly slow speed of 41MPH. 41MPH!!! What happened?

On, the pains of growing older; the issues that children must endure as we watch our parents slip into the unknown era called older adulthood. The good thing is that now I get to drive when we need to go somewhere together. My dad turns his head to look out the window, counting the cars we zoom past, laughing at the thought of the day when my kids will tell their friends about how slow their old man drives.

Short URL: http://osawatominews.com/?p=356

Posted by Jeremy on Sep 15 2010. Filed under Jeremy Gulley, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry