The natives of the boreal forest had their birch canoes. Canoes enabled them to travel across America on woodland streams and rivers. The first nations depended on their canoes for daily life. The plains Indians adopted the horse and became a horse culture. Indian life and wealth were centered on the horse. Indians marked their horses with their handprints. Today it is hard to imagine the plains Indians without horses. Custer might have wished Indians never discovered horses. Likewise modern Americans are car people. Like the canoe builders and the horse riders, Americans, for the past one hundred years, have come to depend on their cars for the basic necessities of life. We are a nation on wheels. The car has changed how we live, where we live, and how we survive. Without our cars we are like the Apache without his horse or the Penobscot without his canoe. So strongly are we attached to our cars and the freedom that driving brings it is almost unthinkable to live without a vehicle. We take driving and owning a car for granted. Getting a driving license is one of the great modern life passages for boys and girls. With that license begins literally hundreds of hours behind the steering wheel, and we never give it a second thought. For some of us our identity is tied to the car we drive. Families depend on two or three cars to get through a regular week with their kids. But what must it be like when your car is taken away, when you become an Indian without a horse, so to speak? What happens to your world and your life? How will you get by? We don’t know, but we’re about to find out. 

Our father is old and suffering with old people’s problems such as a fading memory, loss of hearing, blurred vision, and body aches and pains as well as decreased mobility and vastly reduced reaction time. He has dementia and should not be on the road. Like many seniors he learned to drive before there were driving classes or even driving tests. Someone just had to vouch that you knew how. That was all years and years ago—so many years ago. The doctor went over the risks. He said, “You could kill someone. That would ruin your life and someone else’s. Not a good way to end up.” Dad seemed to understand. “Don’t… don’t take this away from me,” Dad said softly. “You’ll do fine,” the doctor said. “It just takes a little organizing.”  We received the notice from the state a few weeks later, indicating Dad’s license was suspended. We knew he would never get it back. If he were younger maybe, then maybe he could pass the test and satisfy the DMV, but not now. 

Driving for Dad is a reflex. He made his living driving. Every day, year after year, he drove hundreds of miles delivering milk. He was a milkman, driving his yellow milk truck door to door. Later, after he retired, he worked part time as a courier driving hundreds of miles at night, in the winter, though snow and rain and black ice. He always made it to the Federal Reserve on time. Driving was second nature for Dad. Maine is a rural state, and most people depend on their cars to get anywhere. The department of motor vehicles is generous with chances when it comes to seniors, not irresponsible, but understanding. A doctor might advise you should only drive during the day and that would be OK. But dementia is another matter. That affects your brain and how you think and what you see and how you react. Dad’s is not getting any better. I thought, “Suppose it was me, and I was the one who had to give up driving? How would I feel? Would I lose my self-esteem?  Would my usefulness be over?”  Fortunately for Dad he can’t remember these things and can’t dwell on them, but he knows—sometimes. Back in the summer my sister borrowed his car, and when she parked it in the driveway, she tossed the keys onto the seat. Later in the day Dad disappeared. He said he was going to visit a friend. We all assumed he’d walk. He drove. The fact he had no license was irrelevant. When you can’t remember, you get by the way you used to. The old memories are the strongest and stay with us even when we can’t recall what day it is. For moderns such as us driving is like breathing and walking. It’s natural and unconscious. We just do it, and that’s what Dad did. We hear people talk about life after cancer, or life after the death of a spouse. Losing your license has got to be like that. Life without driving is hard to imagine. We’ll make sure he gets by—that he gets out and goes where he needs to—but it won’t be the same. The old independence is gone. Now he is dependant on others for what used to be so common and so natural. At one point he threatened to take his life. He told the doctor, “If I can’t drive, I’ll shoot myself.” The raw emotion erupted. The will to keep going, the will to breathe, the will to stagger to your feet, the will to get behind the wheel—it was all there, deep-seated and primordial. Of course everyone is right, and life goes on. The sun does rise in the morning, and it’s nice to be alive and living in your home and taking care of yourself. At least that’s what we think, but then again we aren’t the Indian who’s lost his horse.