An 89th Birthday Declaration

Months before her 89th birthday my mother, Evelyn O. Brown Williams, decided she was not going to renew her driver's license. She had already curtailed her driving in prior years by not driving at night and only taking necessary trips to the doctor and the grocery store. Her mother, Lucy Washington Brown, (aka Granny) also gave up her drivers license in her senior years. 

 

I remember when my mother learned to drive in the late 1960s-- taking lessons from a driving school and supplementing those lessons with her brother, Arthur Brown. She was never a long-distance driver and she wasn't a jump-in-the-car-and-just-drive kind of driver. Her trips always had purpose. However, I think the most joy she got from driving was errands such as picking up my daughter from school, taking her to the library, Girl Scout meetings, and anything to do with being a doting grandmother while I was working.

Mommy sold her last car this month -- a sports car that she inherited from the estate of her oldest son and my brother, Flick. When he purchased the car, his colleagues teased that he was going through a mid-life crisis. I found it amusing that in her time owning it, the car sported a handicap license plate and she told me that people were always surprised went she got out the driver's side. She's a true polyester-dressed little old lady -- 5 feet nothing and thin.

Copyright © 2020 by Sandra Williams Bush, Ancestor Callings: Georgia and Mississippi Roots. All Rights Reserved.