Texting and Driving

I had to watch a safety video yesterday that was made in Australia.  It showed all kinds of car accidents as a result of drinking.  It was very graphic and sad.  The remaining  time was spent watching videos about the evils of texting while "trying to drive".  I have to say, I have driven after two beers but I never text while driving.  I also do not even answer the phone while driving. One of the girls who died was the class texting champion.  She averaged seven thousand text messages a month.  I have never sent a single text message.  I did go on-line one time to send a note to my daughter's phone.  I did that once.

I have to look straight ahead while I drive.  I cannot look at the babes walking to and from Ron Jon's Surf Shop.  I cannot enjoy the scenery while I am driving.  There have been times I have pulled into a parking lot to enjoy the view.  If I turn my head sideways to look at something I drift off the road. That is a fact of my driving life.  I rarely use a cell phone anyway.  I am trying to escape the world most of the time so why would leash myself to a world who does not give a squirrel's testicle about me.  Dr. Mike Sweeney  was teaching us about antibodies and his pager went off. That was  the year of our Lord  Nineteen Seventy Nine.  In those days, a pager was the size of a fireplace brick and almost as heavy.  Doc stopped in the middle of his lecture and said, "See this thing, don't ever get one.  You cannot get away from them!".  He taught me a great deal about immunology and even more about some important stuff.

Distractions of any kind while driving is dangerous.  I remember while heading up the Cumberland Parkway on our way to Ohio.  My dad was trying to reach the back seat of Nineteen Sixty Nine Impala Station Wagon so he could beat my sister and I.  He almost left the front seat while holding on the steering wheel.  Luckily, those wagons had more cargo room than a Conestoga wagon. We just climbed in the back with the reverse facing seats.  Even dad knew it was unsafe to beat and drive at the same time.  He stopped the car and we knew we were dead when we saw the power window open up into the roof of the car.  He beat us right there on the highway with the entire state of Tennessee watching while mumbling something about, "so you think you can get away form me......"  We could hear him mumbling for the next thirty miles or so. He did not seem distracted.  There was no texting going on but he communicated very well to everyone in the US Interstate system that we would be quiet and stop touching each other.