A cheerful widow in her 80s, Mrs. Jones. Has just given up driving. Too many hits. The town folks scrammed on just sighting her 1972 cruiser cutting the corners downtown, in the last phase. Her last stunt: backing robustly out of her driveway and contacting at velocity 80 a passing USPS Grumman in the middle of our charming acacia street.
I read that in his twilight the mind architect Immanuel Kant frequently uttered whole sentences from a Latin primer that had formed his mind as a child. Similarly, can be said, Mrs. Jones at the end of her well-run driver’s life began cruising the streets just like she had when she first took to the wheel. When nobody heard of stop signs in this here nook of the West.
One day Mrs. Jones asked me to do a little yard work for her for a wage. The 25 bucks I made didn’t exude the warmth an earned dollar usually does. I’ve been giving her a hand as a neighbor since.
In the late fall Mrs. Jones’s son drove up from California and took her down to a warmer country. A month later a richly gilded card from the Golden State arrived in my mailbox: “To My Friend.”