That means reciting for me all I need to know about the 1954 Corvette he rehabbed way back when (B.C. Before Carol). Manual top, six cylinder, automatic, 50s Turquoise. Now we have a totally different sports car. Red, stick shift, automatic top convertible and not so easy to get in and out off. But who cares if it’s fun and looks so good on the road? How it feels on the road is another story, as we quickly learned after taking it on a three-hour trip to New Jersey.

Cars have come a long way since the day of running boards – don’t even pretend to not know what I’ m talking about. Cars today are safer, more efficient, more reliable and require much less ongoing maintenance. However, the electronic mechanisms behind all this efficiency also make it more difficult to maintain your own car, to say nothing of getting your body down under it.

I clearly remember my first car, a blue, fin-tailed Plymouth. It wasn’t the first vehicle I drove though. My first time behind the wheel of a moving vehicle was in 1953. I was 12 years old and driving my grandfather’s tractor, tugging the pulley rope to pull hay bales into a barn loft. I knew

I had arrived when I was able to back up and not drive over the pulley rope. Before that I pretended to drive an old Model-T stored behind the barn. It was mostly wooden, without upholstered seats, with a crank starter and thin wheels.

Now, my writing partner, who didn’t learn to drive until she was 52, fondly remembers many a happy Sunday morning out with her father “driving” a double-decker city bus from the front row seat on the top deck. She also reminisces about an Austin Healy 3000 she and her husband owned. She couldn’t drive that either.

We’ve come a long way since the Model-T. Cars from the 30s are today’s classics. The 50s were a period of creativity with a new model on the market every year. In the 80s we experienced the influx of Japanese imports. Then came the “transplants,” foreign cars made in the United States. And most recently we have the Toyota Prius, a fuel-efficient car that is friendly to the climate. Today a car model stays on the market for five or six years. As far as I’m concerned the styles can stay the same forever, as long as the seats are heated. Whoever engineered that design was certainly in tune with the northeast and our love of creature comforts.

Of course every woman who has been on a trip with a man who is lost most certainly loves the new GPS (global positioning system) feature. It has done so much for lost drivers, let alone relationships. Though my husband occasionally insists the woman speaking to him through the antenna may be sending him in the wrong direction. It must be in the genes; they won’t ask for directions and they are skeptical of taking them from a woman. I was recently on an elevator equipped with the voice of a woman who notes the floor the elevator is on. It should be interesting when my husband rides such an elevator for the first time. I can hear it now, “Are you sure this is the floor for men’s underwear?”

Whatever we drive, whatever luxury features our cars have and how politically correct our cars may be, as we age there are a few essential questions to consider.  First and foremost, do you remain a safe and alert driver? Have you acknowledged the fact that you have reached the point where you need more than reading glasses? How is your night vision? What can you do to maintain your driving skills and independence? There are a number of resources available in the community to help you maintain the capacity to drive.

We also offer this suggestion; begin to consider using public transportation occasionally to become familiar with its possibilities. If you are planning to downsize your living arrangements or move to housing designated for those 55 and older, give a great deal of thought to location. If and when the day comes that you cannot drive you still want to be independent. That means to be able to come and go as freely as possible, to be near services and public transportation.

Nothing could make you more dependent than to be located in some remote setting with no public transportation, and your comings and goings determined by someone else’s master schedule.

But for now, take that Sunday afternoon ride, put the top down, downshift and enjoy the October colors!