Celebration of the slow and shrinking

Every now and then, while driving, I reach up and feel the top of my head to gauge where it sits in relation to the headrest behind it.

I don't know when I started doing this, but the result is always the same; no large part of my scalp has ever extended above that cushioned pillow hovering above my car seat. I've often told people I'm 5 feet tall, but that's just because it's easier than saying "4-foot-11-and-three-quarter-inches."

This little measurement test is always prompted by the same thing. I find myself driving behind a sedan that's going 10 mph below the speed limit in a 25 mph zone.

It happened one day this week, as I was rushing to get to work. Now, I'm not a slow driver, but I'm also not much of a lead-foot. I have never received a speeding ticket, which I consider an achievement, along with the fact that I have never gotten a tattoo.

As I usually do when confronted by the tail lights of a vehicle moving at a sloth-like pace, I uttered a brief expression of motorist's agitation -- a nice way of saying that for a moment, I cursed like a football coach after a bad call. Then I looked at the back of the very slow driver's head in an effort to determine why in the world this vehicle is crawling like this.

He's either lost, stoned or...ah, there it is, old. A tiny crescent, a sliver really, of tell-tale dome was peeking above the headrest. As always, I was immediately mollified by the thought, "Oh, it's an older person."

At this point in my life - it's the week I turn 50 - my irritation is brief. These days, I'm heartened by the fact that this individual is out and about. I cheer him on for not being a shut-in and striving to remain independent. My three minutes of driving patiently behind this very slow car becomes something completely different. I'm doing a good deed. It's a moment of activism for the rights of advanced seniors to remain on the road as long as possible.

I wonder how many times someone has gone through this sort of mental exercise while driving behind me on Fourth Street through Dalton Gardens. I'm a stickler for driving the speed limit there. I travel that road at least once every day and I see the sheriff's deputies writing tickets with the lights flashing as a miserable-looking driver waits in the car. Even more than not wanting to mar my driving record, I don't want to be that woman, the one everyone drives by and feels disappointed in or sorry for, because she got caught.

I consider my own height and my age. I know I'm already registering a quarter-inch less than I used to when my doctor checks my height. In 20 years, you probably won't be able to see me at all when I'm driving, unless you pull up next to me and look in the driver's-side window. I'll have a couple of phone books under me and I'll be gripping the steering wheel, sitting up as straight as can be so I can see over the dashboard. I'll be going pretty slow.

You know what, I hope that's the way it is.

So, carry on great-grandmas and grandpas everywhere. Keep trucking down the road as long as you can safely do it. You're not holding me up. You're blazing a trail.

Maureen Dolan is a Press reporter who will probably be cranking 'the Boss' on her car stereo as she sits atop phone books. Email [email protected].