August 15, 2002

At the next convention of the American Association of Retired People, I am going to propose we adopt a secret handshake. Pulling my membership card from the crowded pockets in my billfold at busy airports and hotels to prove such an easy case is ridiculous. Just a slight variation of the Boy Scout's handshake would be enough to open the doorways of the world to AARP.

Masons and maybe Elks and Eagles have signs and passwords. AARP needs to catch up with the secret fraternal organizations. We need a distress signal in case we are at the airport at gate call and a bifocal lens fogs the departure monitor, or a hearing aid microphone switches over to a satellite signal, blotting the sound of the flight information. Backed by a universal handshake, a slight brush of hands will call for help. If the contact has a dead battery, or a sprung earpiece, we can form a quick alliance and find a lip reader or a Braille translator to help us.

Before going any farther, realize that as long as people are living today, the AARP is going to make those other clubs and lodges look like a miniature golf tournament postponed because of an undersize course.

Another idea I am going to present is to make larger association bumper and window stickers for our cars. Any symbol or symptom a senior driver is at the wheel nets four lengths of space on the freeway in all four lanes on all sides and directions. Explains why the freeway traffic last month in Austin faded and opened a right of way wide enough for an 18-wheeler to pass every time I pulled on the fast track.

True, part of the free space yielded to my directional signals blinking all the time, plus a seatbelt looping outside from the bottom of the door on the driver's side, yet a lot of credit is due the AARP bumper stickers. Austin drivers rank nationwide as intrepid daredevils, especially the University undergraduates, but the wildest of all those clowns of reversed cap bills and gold earrings won't crowd the ol' granddads and grandmothers loose on the road.

A mystery is why, when I was stopped on a parking lot dead still, passing cars kept hitting their horns. Instinct must make young guys honk at the sight of gray hair from following so many Town Cars and Sedan de Villes piddling along five miles per hour above stalling speed. I thought of borrowing a baby seat to cast a different image, but I was afraid they might think I was a kidnapper instead of a father.

At Mertzon, drivers can be over-educated and over-qualified. Ones of us holding several certificates for driver's education courses (court-ordered matriculation) have to be deprogrammed. Stop signs, for example, are octagonal shape, painted red with white outline the same as elsewhere. But a driver has to know that S-T-O-P in Mertzon translates into a full phrase of "pause at highway and railroad crossings" and "floorboard it", or "skid and brake" at the off streets.

One of our citizens a few years back lost his sight and his hearing, but not his car keys and driver's license. Neighbors became concerned about his weekly trips to the liquor store across the county line on the busy highway going to San Angelo. He seemed to do all right driving around Mertzon. He knew the townsite well enough to miss the oak trees in the middle of the road and the big boulders on the side. Being a dry year, if he hit a hackberry tree, the trunk snapped right off. But it took a friend of his over at Sherwood named Johnny something or the other to solve the highway problem. Johnny said, "I can't drive anymore, but I can see well enough to guide Jack to the 'licker store' and back."

Before going to Austin last time, I bought a set of glare protection lens to wear at night. Had my hearing aids tuned so sensitive a dime rolling on the sidewalk sounded like an iron hoop bouncing down a hill. As final preparation, I rode to the grocery store a couple of times with my 18 year-old grandson at the wheel. Made myself keep my eyes open and breathe normally. (In motion, this grandson drives resting his bare left foot out the window on the driver's side, so he can flash the mirror with his toes at girl drivers. Very sporting, but hardly suitable for a grandfather to watch.)

Big changes, however, hit us all. I was touched years ago by Carl Sandburg saying "Life is a series of relinquishments." Nowadays, I am not touched, but sorry Mr. Sandburg was so right.

August 15, 2002

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