{"id":37381,"date":"2026-05-25T08:39:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T15:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=37381"},"modified":"2026-05-25T08:39:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T15:39:01","slug":"to-boldly-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=37381","title":{"rendered":"To Boldly Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boldly go where? Where every other Boomer’s going, into our eighties. I woke up in bed Saturday morning with an eighty-year-old woman by my side. Donna can no longer claim to be in her seventies; I still can, but not for long (I’ll hit the big 8-0 in October). We’re Class of ’46, members of the first wave of our generation, and the math is inescapable. Well, I guess we milked the last ten years for all they were worth … now to see what awaits us in the next decade. A few friends our age read this little blog, or at least know about it. So here’s a shoutout to Greg, Corinne, Robin, and David: see you on the other side!<\/p>\n

\"Donna\u2019s<\/a><\/p>\n

That’s us at Red Lobster Saturday night. We’re with our spring chicken friend Mary Anne. A retired nurse, she more than a friend, looking out for us medically and spiritually. Of course we look out for her too.<\/p>\n

Dinner was but part of Donna’s birthday haul: she’s going on a trip to Michigan in June to see her sisters, traveling there by train and flying home afterward, accompanied by her BFF Millie. Then, in September or possibly October, the two of us will take a road trip to see our friends Bruce and Tamara in Ouray, Colorado, stopping to see our son and his family in Las Vegas on the homeward leg. We hope to spend some time in Santa Fe on the way to Colorado, and visit Zion National Park on the way home. It may be our last hurrah in the road trip department … I still enjoy driving and don’t think I’m much impaired by age, but surely my night vision and reflexes aren’t what they used to be. As I told a friend recently, I can’t believe my wife is 80. Jesus, I don’t even drive that fast any more!<\/p>\n

Speaking of road trips … we were in our early 50s when we moved to Tucson. Our new Arizona driver licenses, issued in 1998, were good for what seemed a ridiculous amount of time, not expiring until 2021. When that year came we were in our mid-70s. We had to make appointments at the DMV to renew them. Covid was on the loose in 2021, and DMV visits were by appointment only (and still are). The reason we had to go to an actual DMV office was not to take a test but to have new photos taken, and go through the document drill required to get Real ID-compliant licenses. Our next licenses were only good for five years, expiring in 2026.<\/p>\n

Everyone told us this time around, due to our age, we’d have to take vision tests. That turned out to be folk wisdom, wrong as it so often is. Here’s what actually happened: we were notified to reapply by email, we clicked the link they sent us and filled out short online forms, included a credit card number to pay the $25 fee, and received our new licenses by mail a week later. DMV recycled the photos from our previous licenses, only this time they’re black & white (and yes, the new licenses also have the Real ID star \u2014 I had secretly feared we’d have to show our papers all over again, like they want to force voters to do or each & every election, the fuckers). Our new tickets are good for another five years, to 2031.<\/p>\n

I think what the deal is, at least here in Arizona, if you don’t have restrictions on your license (like needing to wear glasses) they don’t test. Does that sound right?<\/p>\n

Consider this: Donna had glaucoma eye surgery a couple of years ago and our ophthalmologist says I may need it this year or next. Arizona DMV doesn’t know any of that, and as far as the state is concerned we have perfect vision. Shouldn’t everyone over the age of 70 have to visit the DMV and pass a vision test every five years, and if they’ve gotten a moving violation ticket, a driving test too? You’re gonna hate it when I’m king, ’cause I’m clamping down on elderly drivers.<\/p>\n

Enough for one morning. Places to go, people to see. Stay fresh, cheese bags!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I woke up in bed Saturday morning with an eighty-year-old woman by my side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,2,2761],"tags":[4903,4904,4902,4905],"class_list":["post-37381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-brother","category-personal","category-yell-clouds","tag-babyboomers","tag-bfdbirthday","tag-legally2020butsecretlyblind","tag-showusyourpapers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37381"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37395,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37381\/revisions\/37395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}