For the first time in many, many years, Cookie and I are going to be a one car family. We are getting ready to sell Cookie’s red Toyota Camry. Since we’re both retired now, we have one car too many, and with my dementia, I won’t need a car anyway. Still, it’s a shock to one’s system to have make that decision. Having grown up in Detroit, “The Motor City” as they say, I wanted to grab a car as fast as I could. Needless to say, I wasn’t at all picky. Gas, as I recall it back when I turned sixteen in 1967, was a sweet 20 cents a gallon, and they pumped it for you. Eat your heart out, teenagers of today!
When my Grandfather passed, my parents inherited his gray Ford Fairlane, since my Grandma had never learned how to drive. My older brothers drove it for a while, and then it passed to me, being next in line. It was a great car while it lasted; not the most beautiful car to come off the assembly line, but I was glad to have it. Unfortunately it died of old age, spewing a dense cloud of white-gray smoke behind it as I drove it home from work one day.
I suspect we all have old car stories to tell, being such a mobile society. I confess, I’m kind of old school, and I’ve come to dislike all the technical doodads that today’s cars all seem to come with. Wouldn’t you know it, we decided to sell the Toyota because my Buick Regal has heated seats that Cookie has fallen in love with.
Cookie grumbles about the way I drive, frequently telling me, “You drive like a cop”. Having driven police cars for so many years in Wisconsin, in all kinds of weather, makes it’s hard for me to do otherwise. But I know the time is coming when I’ll have to give up my keys, and let her do all the driving. I feel some sadness about that, but on the other hand, I’ve also seen what drivers with dementia can do. If you know someone in that situation, please, please take control of their keys.
So, Cookie and I have paid off the Toyota and have a clear title. It’s a 2015 with less than 20,000 miles. It was driven back and forth to church by a lovely, wonderful woman, albeit on the cautious side We hope it will find a very good home, here in the great State of Texas.
There’s that old Joni Mitchell song that goes, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” Carpus Diem everyone. Carpus Diem…
Reflections on Dementia 