by Helen Roser 

Knowing when to quit and throw in the towel is a judgment call that develops for some with age. Persons with a yen for independence fiercely hang onto making their own decisions. This is never more true than deciding to sell one’s wheels and quit driving.

I am beholden to K-State students for helping me make the decision to be, for the first time in 79 years, without wheels. I sold my car.

Recently a writer in the Manhattan Mercury expressed concern for K-State students having long waits to cross a street to campus. He observed this was happening in a town that had a crosswalk for cows. He suggested arranging to catapult them across the street.

He need not have worried. K-State students are doing just fine crossing Manhattan Avenue. I believe their method is called being assertive whereby you ignore traffic lights or on-coming traffic and simply walk out into the street. If you do so while texting or chatting with a friend on your phone, you won’t get bored along the way.

Before moving to Manhattan, I was used to sharing the morning traffic corridors with drivers intent on shaving, applying make-up, having their morning coffee or reading their newspaper. But, for making your hair stand on end (assuming you still have some), there is nothing to compare with assertive K-State students crossing streets. I am discussing pedestrians.  Drivers would take a few more pages.

It got so that I’ve felt lucky that I managed to get home without killing anyone. Driving 79 years without killing anyone is a record too nice to mess up, in my thinking. I had the decisive experience of encountering an assertive walker, busily texting, who walked out into the street in front of me on my left while another assertive driver ignored the stop sign and drove out into the street, into my lane, on my right. I managed not to kill either of them.

Then I began thinking about the suggestion of catapulting students across streets and the idea sounded good. I realized it was time for me to quit while I was ahead and can make my own decisions.

So I sold my car and now I can send a check to the Meadowlark Hills Employees Helping Hands Fund, which is a nice feeling. I did it before anyone told me I should. So I am still fiercely independent.

Yeah!