Horse sense

Being able to drive a vehicle on the roadways is a wonderful thing. Having a vehicle that runs is even more wonderful.

The other day I felt as though I was going to be swallowed by a semi behind me; if I had a back porch on my car he would have come right in and met me in the kitchen. Doesn't that drive you crazy?

Because we were on a portion of road where there were no passing zones, I pulled over and let him go around me. I was traveling the speed limit and I hoped that up the road I would see him pulled over for traveling too fast - but no luck. (Those officers never seem to be out when I want them to be.)

Sometimes I day dream more than I should as I am driving the same roads I travel day after day.

I have often thought of, and talked about this with my daughters when we travel together, what the area was like many years ago when there were no paved roads and how odd it must have been to make only one trip a week (if that) to town, traveling by horse, and how excited/scary it was to trade in those horses for motorized vehicles.

We talked about we wish we could turn time back for a day to live in that world - but agreed we have become way too spoiled by fancy things that we probably would not be able to survive more than one day there. We would most likely complain about how slow travel was and that we had other things to do so we needed to speed things up.

I applaud the generation that is still around that did live those days - while they didn't know any different, they worked hard and made many adjustments with progress and didn't worry, like we do, about time. (And they didn't have to worry about speeding semis.)

As I quit day dreaming and come back to reality (and am relieved I am still on the right side of the road) I come to think of all the rules we must follow as we are driving; one of those is not to follow so close and I still get crabby that semi driver was inviting himself in to have coffee with me.

One important rule moms and dads teach their kids is to always make sure you have gas in your vehicles. My girls aren't very good about following that rule.

Last week, Meghan called me at work to say she was out of gas over by Linn Grove. I told her to call home to have someone else rescue her.

Marissa just shook her had at her sister.

It was the day after that Marissa called to say she had run out of gas, too, on her way home from work - she had only gotten two blocks from work. Meghan paid it forward and went to rescue her.

Sometimes, those early days would make more sense.

Lorri Glawe is a member of the news staff. Reach the columnist at lglawe@stormlakepilottribune.com