Catching The Wind

On my way home from work today I was behind a green Ford Thunderbird with at least three young adults in it. First off, I know I’m getting old because I can call people in their late teens and early twenties “kids” and “young adults.” I guess that makes me a “medium” adult, because I think the crossover from adult to “old person” is about 53 years old.

Ask me about that “old person” thing when I’m 53 and I’m sure I’ll be able to slide that one up to 70 pretty easily. Don’t ask me anything when I’m 70 because I won’t have time for any stupid foolishness like answering questions about my age and how I feel. I’ll be too busy going to bed at 6:30 at night and enjoying my breakfast at 4AM at Denny’s. And don’t you dare get in between me and my Moons Over My-Hammy. I will kill you. What are they going to do, give me life in prison? It will be worth the 2 years I serve to see the look of shock on your face when I stab you with in the ear with my fork for interrupting my morning date with two eggs and a slab of ham. Fair warning.

Anyway, as I’m rolling behind this Thunderbird, the passenger window rolls down and a hand comes out, trying to catch the wind. At the time I couldn’t tell if the hand belonged to a young person or an old person, boy or girl. All I could see was it trying to catch the wind. Then it did the “swan move” and made itself more aerodynamic, then it started surfing the wind as it blew past, moving up and down as the wind dictated.

Seeing that hand made me happy. It made me think about the first time I ever caught the wind in my hand like that. It made me think about riding in a blue Econoline 150 van with my dad back in the 1970’s. It was equipped with captain’s chairs in the front and no chairs in the back, just a shag rug because it was the ‘70’s and nobody had any concept of style or safety back then. Seat belts? Not so much. Maybe a lap belt for the driver, but everyone else in the car would have been left to bounce off of each other like a huge polyester mosh pit in the event of a crash.

But that passenger window in that van was perfect for catching the wind. My dad used to have an air conditioning system he used to call “the 255 A/C system.” It sounds cool, but all it meant was two windows down and 55 miles an hour. Nothing to do but catch the wind and sweat when you’re in advanced technology like that. Fortunately we lived in Colorado so you could get away with that air conditioning system for most of the summer there. Still, I wonder how much wonderful Colorado scenery I missed while staring at my hand while it caught the wind.

Then I have to wonder if I will ever get too old to be mesmerized by the feel of the wind on my hand as I drive down a road somewhere. I hope not. But you rarely, if ever, see old people driving with the windows down and their hands out the window. Did they just forget about doing that? Or is that something that loses its allure over the years?

I hope I never get too old to feel the wind.

B!