Technology and Freedom

 

After those nine wrecks I told you about in a previous blog, I learned to drive, well, sort of, anyway. Technology helps me.

Vehicles make driving easier because they come with safety features. The backup camera is handy, and my car beeps when I’m close to a curb or another vehicle.  After a few hours of driving, my ride tells me it is time for coffee.

Do you like riding in a car with no driver? I’ve never done that yet, but it looks scary.

Technology is changing the way we do everything. I haven’t learned how to operate all the old stuff before the new comes along.

I heard Elon Musk say that in a few years, cell phones will be extinct. Wow!  Really? He says we will use AI. How will we get to AI? Will we have a chip in our bodies so we can talk to AI any time we need to?

I don’t care for that idea. The Holy Spirit lives within me, and He’s enough. I don’t want an intelligence residing in my body, other than God’s or mine.

I have found AI useful in my design work. I can ask AI to bring a room into existence with my specifications, and it does. This helps me show clients what their space will look like with my ideas. If they don’t like it, I can change it. Before AI, I had to convince them with color boards and sketches.

When it becomes possible to have AI inside your brain, will you allow it?  I hope when that day arrives, we still have a nation of freedom, and you can say no.  However, during Covid, we received a government mandate to take a vaccine. Many lost jobs because they refused the vaccine.

Our government should never force citizens to take a medicine or substance. It should be a choice. I believe in vaccinations, and I’m happy they exist. Polio was wiped out because Jonas Salk discovered the answer. People chose to take it.

Schools soon required students to receive it, and it saved lives. Having said this, I continue to say this: I believe it is better to have a choice about what protects our lives than authorities forcing us into taking it. Most of us will choose the medicine.

But! I will not choose to have a chip with AI placed into my body or brain.

When my husband needed a heart procedure, his team of doctors discussed the situation. Hubby told them what he wouldn’t allow, and they told him what else was available. Together, they made a good decision.

Technology is changing! Don’t give up your freedom to choose!

In my new book, Kade uses technology to kill men.

Kade's Worth

 

Driving in Houston

 

Pixabay

I failed my driving test twice before I passed it. I was sixteen at the time and had a beginner’s license. The written test proved a breeze, but with the grading officer as a passenger? Well, the experience grew brutal.  After starting the car and maneuvering fifteen feet ahead, he had me drive around the block and park back at the DMV office. I don’t remember what I did or didn’t do in that short ride, but mortification joined me that day.

My mom, sister, and cousin were waiting to congratulate me on getting my license and witnessed my quick return. With wide eyes, they asked, “What happened?”

I shrugged. “I failed.” Humiliation clung to me without limits. Why couldn’t the Earth open a hole so I could crawl into it? My mom drove us home.

I never had a chance to practice driving before the test. My mom refused to let me take her vehicle because she feared I’d wreck it. Her prediction came true when we moved to Houston. I had nine wrecks that first year, but it wasn’t in her car. Yes, you read that right. NINE!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. At the age of 18, I married. Hubby’s ten-year-old clunker became my wheels, too. The thing didn’t even have heat or air conditioning. We sweated torrents in the summer and broke icicles away from our noses in the winter, but I gained experience as a driver while we lived in Oklahoma.

When we moved to Texas and pastored a small, country church, we bought a stick-shift sedan. It heated us in the winter, but it had no cooling for summer. The temperature registered 116 F for days at a time during the summer months. When we exited the car, we looked as though we had been swimming in our clothes. The land cracked under this brutal heat, but we watered it with dripping sweat each time we went outside.

Winter or summer, I drove our stick-shift around country roads and didn’t see other vehicles for miles at a time. Not one accident in the five years we lived there. I’ve learned, right? Wait till I move to Houston! Remember? NINE in one year!

From the north plains of Texas, we moved about 100 miles east and arrived in Irving, TX. Uh oh! It is the city where I failed my first driving test, but now I have my license, and I’m experienced. I’m familiar with streets and locations, and I don’t drive into the big city of Dallas. No worries.

But! Houston is ahead of me. NINE is in my future.

After almost four years in a lovely Irving church where my hubby was pastor, a church in Houston wanted us as their first family.

So, we headed south.

Houston, TX

Huge Houston contains zillions of highways with multiple loops to ring the city, and it is widespread. The Med Center is well-known, but it requires a good car to get through the maze to visit sick parishioners, and our stick-shift had seen its better days.

We left Houston and drove south to Dickenson, Texas to buy a Gay car.  Yeah, yeah, I know my name is Gay, but the dealership in Dickenson is also named Gay. The dealership isn’t homosexual, and neither am I, but we are both Gay.  I drove a Gay Pontiac with my name, Gay, on the back fender. Crazy, huh?

Then the accidents began.

My name on the car had nothing to do with the collisions. I had never been forced to drive defensively, but Houston requires that style of motoring, and I hadn’t learned that technique yet.

The first catastrophe was my fault. Yes, I admit it. I did it. Fortunately, I was alone when a driver, who had the green light, zoomed into the intersection and crashed into my passenger side.

Police

The officer asked me to sit in his squad car. We needed to get out of traffic, and he wanted to ask a few questions.

“Officer, my light was yellow when I went through it. I didn’t know it was about to turn red.”  He issued me a warning. Nice guy, really nice.

I drove home to show my hubby. The entire passenger side of my station wagon was caved in. I assume the other driver’s car took a big hit too, but at that moment, my sympathy was for myself.

We took our beautiful, blue and white Pontiac back to the dealership for repair. A costly repair.

The next month, to the day of the first accident, I had crash number two. Yep. You read that right. Month to the day. But I was innocent!  Except for that defensive driving thingy. When in Houston, one must anticipate someone running a stop sign. (Bear in mind, the driver who hit me didn’t think about me rushing a yellow light. turning red)

A lady ran a stop sign, broadsided me, backed up, and fled the scene. I chased her in my car, and a kind man followed us. When the police arrived, the Good Samaritan explained how the woman ran the stop sign and barreled into me. The lady was not a citizen and had no license. That’s why she bolted. She got a ticket. I later learned she never paid for it.

When we returned to the dealership for repairs, the head honcho scratched his head, “Didn’t we just replace the side of this very car?”

Bright red with embarrassment, I turned around and left hubby to explain. Now get this! The repair bill was less than $100 of the first restoration. Wow! They gave me the preferred customer discount!

 

To Be Continued. Stay tuned. You don’t want to miss the next wreck.

Sarah Series

 

Remembering My Mom on Mother’s Day

 

My mother lives in heaven now. I hope your mom lives on earth, and if you are fortunate, she lives near you. Mine left Earth thirty-five years ago, and I miss her every day.

Other than a faint resemblance, we are nothing alike.

This petite lady loved vanilla ice cream and ate it every day. I’d tease her and say, “Try one with pecans in it.” She’d respond, “Why? I like this one.” No matter her diet, she weighed one hundred pounds to the day she died. She ate anything and everything. As for me? I work hard to keep from gaining, and most of the time, I don’t succeed.

She was famous for her meals. And boy, oh boy, do I wish for those. I wish you could sit at her table and enjoy smothered steak, gravy, creamed potatoes, corn cut from the cob, slathered in butter, and fresh snapped green beans. Top off the meal with banana pudding for dessert. And those chicken and dumplings? Fried pies? Oh my. Delicious memories.

I hate meal preparations, and it shows in my cooking attempts. Even when I follow her recipes, my dishes don’t taste like hers. Some people can cook and others can’t. I’m in the “can’t” section.

She also baked and kept goodies on hand. Her Devil’s Food cake was beautiful. I buy cake mixes and hope for something similar. It’s not anywhere near the same.

Mom refused to read or pray in public and often declined to attend a Bible study for fear she’d be called upon to do so. Such things are normal for me. She bragged on my speaking abilities, and I boasted about her cooking and managerial skills.

Our relationship was like oil and water. She wanted to cling to me, and I ran like a maniac toward independence.

I’m thankful we spent the last ten years of her life in harmony. We truly loved each other and came to admire our differences.

Stepmoms and adopted moms hold special places in the lives of children. Their kids were born before they met them. Applaud them for loving the child from another woman’s body.

Let’s not forget the unsung heroes. Teachers who work with kids each day, and others like our daughter who care for the hurting, abandoned little guys. Aunts. Grandmothers.

Authors who write children’s books. Women play an important role in the lives of children.

 All Women influence children.

 I hope each of you ladies have a wonderful Mother's Day.

I wrote a book about a woman who wanted to marry and have children but couldn't because of a family scandal.

 Family Secrets