Drive Time

There was a time when I could drive eight, ten, twelve hours, even more at a time. One time I drove twelve hours over night from Wichita to Denver to hear Jimi Hendrix at Red Rocks (his last concert with the Experience, which because of the contention in the group ended up being only about thirty minutes long). Those times were in a galaxy far, far away. Now it’s uncomfortable for me to drive much more than six hours a day. I’ve occasionally been able to pull eight hours in recent years, but only rarely and with at least a couple of half-hour stops to stretch, eat. Truth is I’m just too old to sit behind the wheel of a car and fight the boredom and aches and pains that such a trip demands. My shoulders are in pain within an hour, my lower back within two, my feet (why, I don’t know) within three. Oh how I would like to have those days of twelve-hour overnight drives back. But there are so many other things I used to be able to do that I no longer can, this seems minor, at best. Merely another milestone on that long, slow drive to old age.