Seize the Day!

You can take the car away from the girl, but you can't keep the girl away from a car. This week I rode up to the entrance of the Commons in a big, beautiful black convertible. Darn it, nobody was watching., but it didn't matter.

A week ago a man came up to me at as we were leaving our favorite coffee shop and said some kind words about my column and the discussion which he had overheard our group having. Since he was very pleasant of the correct political persuasion, we invited him to sit in this week. He did so and we tackled everything from filibusters to Proposition 3.

But all the while I kept glancing at a beautiful convertible parked just outside the door. Apparently our guest noticed me doing that, so he said it was his car I was drooling over. And he went on to say, "If you would like to take a ride in it I would be glad to drive you home."

Well, in 91 years I have learned a couple of things. One of them is not to get into a car with a strange man. But much to the amusement of my friends , I didn't hesitate to say, "Hey, thanks. That would be great." We got a great send-off.

Driving down Orchard in the morning nobody can go very fast, but when he hit the accelerator and we got that wonderful vrooom, vroom, with my hair blowing in the wind, I was 29 ears old again, or 39 or whatever. And of course the driver was a perfect gentleman.

The moral to this story is that you are never too old to let a little excitement into your life. It means taking chances occasionally and doing things you never thought you would do. The first time I went up in a hot air balloon, at age 50 or so, I thought, "No. I can't. I won't." But I had known Bill, the flier, since he was a little boy, and I trusted him. So I took a deep breath and climbed in. At 30 feet I was just a little doubtful, but at 60 feet I was ready to go to the moon. It was a magic ride.

Last week a friend who needs a walker to navigate was urged to go to her grandson's graduation. "Oh, I don't think so," she said at first. But with urging she and her walker took off for Stocker Stadium. When she returned in the afternoon after the ceremony and a family lunch she was all but floating on air. The walker hadn't interfered with the excitement at all. Another friend, attached to her oxygen tank, spends 25 minutes every day on the treadmill. a. Why? Well for health reasons, of course. But she made a bet in the winter that she could hit the golf course by June, with the aid of a cart and her oxygen tank. I'm bettin' on her. And there's my friend (male) with whom I play pool every Thursday. He is in the first part of a series of radiation treatments for cancer. In addition, he has to put an extension on his oxygen tube so he can maneuver it around the pool table, . Excitement? Sure. Not the dump up and down kind, but the inside kind. Erma Bombeck said it. "Seize the day. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart."