Do you remember walking? Not exercise walking, but just easy walking from one neighborhood point to another? But then, like domesticating the horse changed us forever, so did inventing the car. And while I love my car, it's changed me and my little world forever. Often in unfortunately irrevocable ways....
Is this beginning to sound like waxing sentimental about the-way-we-were...? Uh, yeah I think it is!
When the people and places you knew were only a wish and a walk away, some extraordinary little things happened along those ways. Experiences no longer as accessible as we speed in our gleaming steel chariots as fast as we can. After all -- getting there is what cars are all about, right?
It's not always esteemed to look over shoulders in an age which prefers to look straight ahead. And yet, when I do I recall meandering to school every morning with enough observational time to notice those green and growing things you can't quite see and study from a car (or a school bus).
Going to the store -- it was usually a gentle jaunt past neighbors, not a hurried highway trip to the mall. Movies -- they weren't sprawling multiplexes at the end of a long crowded parking lot. Family and friends -- without cars, they tended to cluster close by where they were reachable within walking time versus inter-state time.
Lets be clear. Time does not hold in place for anyone. Nor should it. Still, even the most progressive and aggressive trail-blazers will happily concede that speed has its limits. Slow can often be just as good for us as fast.
Oh, and when it comes to the superiority and splendor of our cars -- my recalled Toyota makes me really wonder about that...!
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