My last post about texting and driving brought up some good discussions, tweets, and comments from friends. The one perspective from points three and four was that possibly women shouldn’t drive.

There has been much discussion for many years about whether or not, women are safer drivers than men. I with all my consciousness believe they are.

I remember as a child, my Mother driving, smoking, drinking orange juice, all the while feeding my brother (the natural method, not a bottle), correcting my sister and I, and carrying on conversations with invisible people. I’d always ask, “who are you talking to?” To which she replied… “I’m just thinking out loud.” That wan’t entirely true either, since she wasn’t making sounds. Also if you think out loud, and are yelling it out, are your thoughts that loud in your head? If they are, that would hurt! These are the thoughts that I wondered about many times while riding in the car at age seven, of course I was without a seat belt.

At that time, we didn’t have seat belts, in cars. Well we actually did, but no one used them, especially in the back seats. We always pushed them into the seat and had discussions as to what contraption they were when we were looking for lost food or money. Being seven my hands and arms were small enough to fit down there. When we would ask what they were, Mama would tell us to put them back so they wouldn’t hurt us. She was always looking out for us! A great Mother.

She also did all this in a 1964 Plymouth Valiant! No that was a car too. It had an engine called a “Slant 6“ which was a golden motor that always ran. I can still remember that big car. Occassionally, we would take long trips, and at night I would sleep on the back dash, above the back seat, looking out the back window at the stars, and listening to whatever was on the radio. I distinctly remember Ray Stevens song, “The Streak”, and at seven not having a clue what Ethel should’t be looking at. I found out later, and the song just didn’t have the same meaning.

I miss those days of long trips to South Georgia and South Carolina in that Plymouth when women could easily multi-task while driving. Then again men could too, but there wasn’t as much amazement to it. When you are five you believe your parents can do anything… come to think of it, I still do believe that for the most part.

If I was five today, I’d know that my Mom would be comfortable in an SUV driving, breast feeding my brother, smoking, drinking orange juice, adjusting the radio, and TEXTING… NO QUESTION!

If she could do all that when I was five without power steering… she could text today too!?