Eh? Speak up, sonny!

I have passed over that hill. I am now on Medicare. I turned 65 and there is no more hope for me. There's not much more to be said but, of course, I will say all that is unnecessary.

I live in a town where the median age is somewhere around 62. You know what the median age is, don't you? Yes, that's right... it means there are an equal number of people over that age as there are younger than that age. As I look around, I think that really doesn't express it properly. Think of it like this: the longest lines are at pharmacy counters. And a fair percentage of those lines are people using walkers. More people call me "young man" than call me "Pops."

There was an automobile accident the other day. The car in the picture is a Toyota Prius. Beyond wondering if the batteries were damaged and caused an environmental hazard, I had to wonder how the driver escaped injury. She was 79 years old. She also either made an illegal left turn or an illegal U-turn. Let me explain...

The intersection where this happened has a traffic light. The left turn lanes on either side of the intersection are also controlled by that traffic light using an green or red arrow. In order for the F350 Ford to hit the Toyota, somebody had to go through a red light. According to the very poorly written story, no one is blaming the 64 year old driver of the pick-up. That leaves the red light facing the 79 year old woman.

As an aside, it is common to see those ages for drivers in reported accidents around here.

Now, why did I call it a "poorly written story?" Well, because it was edited a few times between 8:00 AM and 9:00 PM after a few comments to the story complained about lines like "Neither Coder and the driver of the truck, 64-year-old Robert Choquette of Sebring, were unhurt."

Grammatically atrocious... at best. But that is not an indication of the age of our residents, just an indication of how poorly we are served by our local media. Our local media consists of two radio stations (1 FM and 1 AM), no TV stations, and two newspapers: one that publishes on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and one that is one very thin section of the Tampa Tribune but is at least a daily.

The most crowded times at restaurants are at 4:30 PM and breakfast time. A lot of restaurants only serve breakfast and lunch and close at 2 PM.

It really is God's "Waiting Room" here.