We love Nancy Wilson.
Nancy, our long time Bremen correspondent and resident general-purpose curmudgeon at large, is as proud and independent as they come. We were alarmed by news of her first car accident Jan. 28 and even more concerned when we learned she had been in a second crash in Thomaston Feb. 5.
It was sad news indeed, when she told us via her Back Talk column, that she decided to slip out from behind the wheel for, apparently, the last time.
Getting old is hard.
Anyone who doesn’t know that will learn it in time. The so-called “Golden Years” can be a wonderful time of life, but it also is the point when the sands of time increasingly erode away the skills one has spent a lifetime practicing.
For people who have been strong, independent adults, more than capable of taking care of themselves for decades, the decision to stop driving must be an intimate, painful one. Instantly the scope of the world shrinks to the limits of someone’s willingness to rely on others and the availability of others to be relied upon.
In Lincoln County, as Nancy so ably pointed out in her Feb. 10 column, operating without a car is particularly problematic.
Of course, painful as the downside of not driving is for the individual, for both that person and the general public, the consequences of an “unsafe” driver on the road, unsafe for any reason, are potentially catastrophic.
We understand it can be a hard decision and we honor and respect those who make it of their choosing. Those of us who live long enough will all come to this choice at some point. It’s one we’ll either make for ourselves, or one someone else will make for us.
Nancy’s sudden streak of bad luck may have been no more than mere coincidence, but if she feels unsafe, then she should be honored for being proactive, especially as she said, because she is thinking of the drivers she shares the road with.
She may not be as mobile as she once was, but she remains as proud and independent as ever.
