Posted on by Phil Strawn

Time To Hand A Few Things Off


It’s an oldie but a goody.

As I approach age 74, realizations come to me at the oddest moments. Most are in dreams, but sometimes during meals, showering, plant pruning, or enjoying a sip of Irish Whiskey on my patio. My bum right foot won’t cooperate, thanks to botched back surgery, and sometimes it trips me up, which instantly reminds me that I need to use my walking stick and that at my age, any fall could be fatal or at least require a hospital visit, and that would bring relatives with grocery store flowers in hand to pay their condolences, and need my wife to sit by my bedside for days, or until I expire with tubes and machines hooked up to my bodily unit. It’s an unpleasant thought. Age tells you there are things you used to do that are not doable now.

I used to drive a trusty 2008 Honda CRV that has been a dependable ride since we purchased it new. But, back to the foot thing, I can’t drive a car now, even though I tell my wife MoMo that I can work the accelerator with my cane and break with my left foot. Nope, she won’t buy it, and I did try to drive a few weeks ago, and it was a disaster, so I have embraced her nurse-trained logic. It ain’t happening, dearhearts. So what to do with my small white buddy that’s been sitting in our driveway since last August of 2022?

My granddaughter, Maddie, lives in Tulsa and got her driver’s license this morning. So yesterday, MoMo drove our other Honda car, and my neighbor John and me ( John drove, of course) piloted the 2008 Honda to DFW airport to meet up with Maddy and her older sister Lillian and her wee-one at American Airlines Terminal D, so I could hand Maddy the keys and title to my Honda, which is now her Honda.

Sometimes it’s hard to accept, but old folks must do the right thing and hand the keys to the car and the future to the young ones.

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8 Replies to “Time To Hand A Few Things Off”

  1. She will always remember this…people forget their second, third, and later cars…but never their first. That is great you got to do that for her…but yea it sucks that you cannot drive anymore.

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    1. Yeah, it sucks, but now I can tell my wife how to drive, and she hates it. She’s ordering me one of those stick on fake steering wheels for the passenger side, kind of like the Simpsons.

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      1. LOL… not bad to be chauffeured around… your wife gets a win on extra steering wheel.

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  2. (1) Couldn’t you buy yourself one of those fancy self-driving cars?
    (2) I drove through Tulsa on I-44 back in late December 2009. I was en route to Springfield, Missouri, at which point I turned north towards Bolivar, where my parents lived at the time… It was nighttime as I drove through northeastern Oklahoma towards the Missouri border. Big trucks were constantly splattering dirty slush on my windshield, making the trip a nightmare. There were stretches and intermittent patches of ice on the interstate (the ice had been solid out of Oklahoma City) that made driving extremely hazardous. (Don’t even ask me about the leg of the trip between Albuquerque and Oklahoma City!)… Anyway, I’ve been through Oklahoma a few times in my life. The state is definitely OK.
    (3) At least you’ll get grocery store flowers. I’ll probably get prickly weeds plucked without care from an empty desert lot.

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    1. I’ve had a few trips like yours. I don’t mind flowers from H.E.B. or Kroger but would prefer Sun Flowers. Nope, will never own a Tesla or that new GMC that drives itself while the passengers clap and the white dog howls.

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