Re: Grinning through tears

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On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 00:12:59 -0500, Lawrence Watt-Evans <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

>On 20 Nov 2003 13:21:25 -0800, Mark Atwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>Lawrence Watt-Evans <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>>> 
>>> Seatbelts have been mandatory equipment since the early '60s; the
>>> Callahan stories aren't _that_ old.
>>> 
>>> Though I admit actual usage has increased steadily over time, as
>>> has enforcement of seatbelt laws.
>>
>>There has been a cultural shift w.r.t. seatbelts, I think.
>
>Yeah, there has.
>
>>There was an awkward couple of years where when one of us was
>>driving and a parent (or other older adult) was a passenger, we the
>>younger person as driver would have to refuse to pull out of the
>>parking until everyone belted in.
>
>Been there, done that.  My father-in-law, specifically -- and as I
>had two small kids in the car at the time, I was furious he'd set
>such a bad example for them.
>
>Fortunately, their reaction was, "Gramps sure is weird, isn't he? 
>_I_ wouldn't want to ride without a seatbelt!"

My father used to leave his seatbelt off, on the theory that, if you
prepared to survive an accident, this meant that you were planning on
having an accident.  He theorized that, by not wearing a seatbelt, he
was less likely to have a wreck.  He also refused to ever get car
insurance, again on the theory that this would make him less likely
to ever have a wreck.  He managed to survive 68 years of driving
without ever having a serious accident, but I think that this was
more a matter of luck than of his theories being right.

Whenever I rode in the car with him, I would insist on his wearing a
seatbelt, but I suspect that he rode most of the time without one
when he was by himself.

For the last year-and-a-half of his life, he had visual
hallucinations, due to some time of dementia (Alzheimer's Syndrome
was ruled out, but the doctors never decided for sure what he did
have).  It took a while for the rest of us to realize that he was
seeing things.  Once we did realize this, it proved quite difficult
to make him stop driving.  He did agree to stop driving at night.

My mother died in May of 2001.  My father apparently had the first of
a series of minor strokes a couple of weeks after her death, and had
to be moved first to a hospital, then to a series of nursing homes,
before his death 5 1/2 months later.  He never drove again after the
first stroke.

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-- 
John F. Eldredge -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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