Tuesday, June 22, 2021

The "Don't Tell Me About My Driving" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Father's Day 2021 and I had just opened my Father's Day card from my beautiful wife, Carol.  I knew she was watching me as I read the cover of the card which said "I'M NOT LOST!"


and below it read...NARRATOR: HE WAS, IN FACT, LOST.  Pretty funny since it just happens to be true!  I opened the card to the inside, as my wife smiled, and I read...

HAPPY 50TH FATHER'S DAY TO A MAN WHO DOESN'T NEED A GPS TELLING HIM WHERE TO GO AND HOW TO GET THERE BECAUSE HE'S BEEN DRIVING LONGER THAN YOU'VE BEEN ALIVE AND KNOWS EXACTLY WHERE THE HELL HE'S GOING.  Signed...Love You! Carol


Took some time before we both had stopped laughing, but I know it's as true as can be, since I have an awful time driving to locations that I have never been to before.   And, I just can't get that damn unit in my dashboard to tell me where I should be driving.  Same goes for my iPhone which never seems to tell me the right directions as well.  One time last year I actually put the directions in my phone and car unit and found they were taking me to the same place, but it two different directions.  Here of late, my sweet daughter-in-law would print out the directions to my grandson's baseball games and give them to me so I can follow her directions.  Always seems to get me there, but why can't I do that myself?  A few days ago Carol and I went to one of my grandson's baseball games at a location I had never visited before.  I tried to put the address into my car, but after about a half hour of driving to find a place 20 minutes away, Carol called our daughter-in-law to ask for help.  She was able to find an image of my car on her phone...how she ever did that is beyond me...and actually pretty scary that someone can do that...and told us which way to turn at every intersection we came upon.  We made it to the game just in time to see the first pitch.  Now, all this goes back a few years to when I was better at getting places.  We had made reservations for a motel near the Baltimore Airport for staying the night before our trip to the Caribbean so we wouldn't be exhausted from getting up to early to drive to the airport in the morning.  I placed the directions in my car unit and everything worked perfect.   I even stored my home address so when we returned to the motel, we could just punch in the word "Home" and it gave us directions to our home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  Worked perfect.  Two years later we made another trip to the Caribbean and used the same directions to the Motel. Upon return we pulled up our home address and began using the saved directions once again.  I thought it didn't look the same as two years before as I began to drive...and boy was I right.  A hour later we saw the sign telling us how far we were away from New York.  Did some of my own guessing and before long we were in Havre deGrace, Maryland.  Hey...I at least knew my way home from there!  I'm sure I'm not the only one that has problems with directions.  I hope!  But, the card my wife had just given me was right on!  I've been driving for over 60 years and drove cars that didn't even have a radio in them let alone a GPS system.  Pretty sure no one knew what GPS stood for back then.  When visitors arrived on Father's Day to greet me, they looked at the card, which Carol just happened to have handed to them, and began to laugh.  One such visitor asked her if she had that made special, since it was SO TRUE!  Nah...there are probably a dozen or so people who shopped at Walmart and bought the same card and are having the best time sharing it with their family.  Will I ever change?  What'd you just say?  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.  

PS - By the way, when we returned home from the baseball game we followed someone else and found the location was right down the street from another ball field that I have visited many times in the past.  If I had only known... 

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