{"id":1869,"date":"2012-04-24T00:24:20","date_gmt":"2012-04-24T07:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/?p=1869"},"modified":"2012-04-23T16:12:11","modified_gmt":"2012-04-23T23:12:11","slug":"u-turns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/?p=1869","title":{"rendered":"Signs of Getting Older #15: U-turns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Back in the days when the wheel was something of a novelty, for my 18th birthday the folks paid for my driving lessons. Let it be known I think driver training is an on-going process and I do not consider my education in this regard complete by any means (insert pause for a chorus of &#8216;no kidding&#8217; and other, less kind interjections from family to fade).<\/p>\n<p>A friend of my sister offered these words of advice, &#8220;If you see a driver wearing a <a href=\"http:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/george-raft.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-3064\" title=\"george raft\" src=\"http:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/george-raft.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"179\" height=\"134\" \/><\/a>hat, pull off to the side of the road until that car is out of sight.&#8221; In those pre-hipster days, he was referring to fedora style or other fashion suicide version of something Frank Sinatra or Bob Hope would wear.<\/p>\n<p>The reason for precaution was that such a hat would be worn by someone who spent most of his days operating a tractor, a Combine <a href=\"http:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/massey-fergusen-combine-not-cropped-copy.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-3062\" title=\"massey fergusen combine \" src=\"http:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/massey-fergusen-combine-not-cropped-copy-300x158.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"111\" srcset=\"https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/massey-fergusen-combine-not-cropped-copy-300x158.jpg 300w, https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/massey-fergusen-combine-not-cropped-copy.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 210px) 100vw, 210px\" \/><\/a>Harvester and or a baler (yes, I know, you pull a baler behind a tractor but, c&#8217;mon, work with me here, son). Thus the nattily haberdashered driver would not necessarily be up to date with some of the more commonly accepted customs of city driving like maintaining a speed relatively close to that of traffic, waiting until a stop sign or red light to coast to a complete stop, or using the left turn lane for left turns.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/old_school_reporter.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-1871 alignleft\" title=\"old_school_reporter\" src=\"http:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/old_school_reporter-228x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"128\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/old_school_reporter-228x300.jpg 228w, https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/old_school_reporter.jpg 399w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 128px) 100vw, 128px\" \/><\/a>It could also be an old guy heading home from his retirement bash, way too drunk to walk safely.<\/p>\n<p>Understand this was back in the old days when office parties were held in the office: the secretarial pool brought the casseroles, cookies, cakes and the men in suits brought optimistic amounts of grain alcohol. There was no breathalyzer and the only roadside suspensions were\u00a0when someone<a href=\"http:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/highlevelbridge_01.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-3061\" title=\"highlevelbridge_01\" src=\"http:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/highlevelbridge_01-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"118\" srcset=\"https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/highlevelbridge_01-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/highlevelbridge_01.jpg 584w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 210px) 100vw, 210px\" \/><\/a> miscalculated the turn onto the High Level Bridge.<\/p>\n<p>Now I&#8217;m much older and, well, moderately less foolish but the hat thing still seems to apply. Sometimes it&#8217;s still a sign of a driver who should have handed in the keys a few years ago.<\/p>\n<p>More often it&#8217;s a sign of how old I&#8217;ve become.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/beasties87-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-3068\" title=\"beasties boys \" src=\"http:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/beasties87-2-294x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"144\" height=\"147\" srcset=\"https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/beasties87-2-294x300.jpg 294w, https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/beasties87-2.jpg 318w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 144px) 100vw, 144px\" \/><\/a>Now I want to reach over and turn their hats around so the brim is over their eyes. And turn down the music and tell them to pull up their pants. And slow down and, what&#8217;s that dear? Turn off what signal light?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in the days when the wheel was something of a novelty, for my 18th birthday the folks paid for my driving lessons. Let it be known I think driver training is an on-going process and I do not consider &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/?p=1869\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[108,444],"tags":[781,107,643,644,618,645],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1869"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3073,"href":"https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869\/revisions\/3073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}