Woman Drivers on Election Day

My Uncle George was a huge hulk of a man who dressed like a bum except when he was on the job. When George put on his cop uniform, he became a different man, everything buttoned down to the max and gleamingly clean. George was not a handsome man but again that impression changed when he put on the blue. His unusual facial features blended together to form an expression of contained ferocity mixed with unquestionable authority.

He walked the most dangerous beat in Rochester. The bad guys knew him and they left him alone. He carried a nightstick and a gun. He rarely if ever had to use them. His weapons lent the perceptionthat they had been used many, many times.  He was a legendary figure in the Bulls head area off West Main near St. Mary's hospital.

Off duty, George was a boyhood friend of my father as well as the husband of my mother's sister Rose. George could swear and yell like no other person I had ever known. He was always pissed off about something, second guessing somebodyor defending somebody else. Fortunately for me, George was on my side.

George reserved his greatest bile for what he called "goddamned women drivers". I rode in a car with George maybe a dozen times growing up and every ride was punctuated with an outburst or five against a woman driver. Women drivers were comparatively rare in the early fifties. Men drove goddamn it. Men knew where they were going and they weren't distracted by every goddamn thing that they passed plus knew the goddamned rules of the road.

I never could figure out what the woman driver whom George was swearing at had done that was wrong other than being a woman at the wheel. He wasn't road rager so to speak. He never confronted anyone that I know of but he cussed them out within the privacy of his own car.

So I grew up with the idea that women were shitty drivers. If my mother and father were both in the car, my father would drive...no question. My father got banged up one time and he couldn't walk much less drive for months. My mother did all the driving. She was a great driver although I'm sure that every so often there was a George type guy in the rear view who did not appreciate the fact that she was behind the wheel and wondering what the hell was wrong with the husband.

Let's skip ahead  thirty five years.

When Lynn and I first started dating, I did most of the driving. I owned a messy Honda Civic...she owned a spotless, hot Pontiac Trans-Am. As we began to ride together in one car, the owner of the car did the driving. After a very short time it became evident that I was (how should I say this) a much better passenger than Lynn. Lynn was a bit of an Uncle George when I took the wheel. We were pretty close in driving skills but I enjoyed shotgun more than she did, plus she had a better sense of direction.

Skip ahead another thirty years.

Lynn does almost all of the driving. She's a much better driver than I. She takes care of the maintenance of the Cadillac. We have one car and we own it. The car is meticulous. I neber drive when Lynn is in the car. The last time I drove with Lynn as a passenger we both almost had heart attacks just backing out of my garage and into the street. When we got to the street, I stopped the car and handed her the keys.

I have a five mle radius in which I drive. Anything else Lynn is at the wheel.

I trust her completely.

So all of this takes me up to yesterday and then to now...election day.

Yesterday I was on my solo four mile round trip journey to get milk and bring it home. I started thinking about Uncle George. I began to notice the women drivers around me. There were more women driving than men. I passed several cars where the woman driver had a male passenger.

I wondered what George would be saying if he were alive.

Yesterday Melania Trump held a superspreader event in our town. I'm gonna have to double mask it for the next few months. As I was heading away from the event I got a peek at the traffic flow heading towards the event. Almost all of the cars were being driven by men wearing red MAGA hats,

I couldn't wait to get out of that flow.

My home is in a suburb. Our suburb, on the the border of Charlotte which is  becoming increasingly a CARY (concentrated area of relocated Yankees). I am a white college educated male 65 and over. Trump doesn't reach out to my group to often as he sees that he won't get too far. He is reaching out, begging really, for my wife's vote...a white suburban woman. Trump can't undertand why suburban women don't like him. If he asked Lynn, she would explain in terms that would embarass Uncle George. It's women who are driving this election....most specifically white suburban women. We are located in a swing state. If the CARYs of North Carolina prevail, driven by the white sububurban women who are very used to driving than Trump will be out on his ass. It could all be decided right here in the Tarheel state. Right here in Mecklenburg County.

I don't know if white women can jump but they sure as hell can drive. Today they will prove it once and for all.

We'll know more tomorrow.

You go girls