WISCONSIN RAPIDS [ LINK : Chicago Tribune ]  Millie Kleinschmidt was born in 1935, the year Babe Ruth retired.  But she didn’t get her driver’s license until the year Brett Favre (pretended to be) retired, nearly three quarters of a century later.

Asked Grand-ma
what she wanted to be
She said “Sonny,
I’m seventy-three”
“Not gonna give up,
not ready to quit
so I got my learn-er’s per-mit”

Granny, you can drive a car?
Hope you aren’t going far
Stay out of that corner bar
‘Cuz Granny we love you

Toot toot, m-beep beep, ehhh?

This story reminded me of one of my Dad’s favorite anecdotes, about getting his license back in the 50s… about 1952 if my math is right.

Back then, the state patrol administered the road tests in Michigan (some states, like Missouri, still do it that way, I guess.)

Anyway, the trooper came out to the car and had Dad run all the routine equipment checks:  headlamps, turn signal, brakes, horn, etc.  The cop recited each request as if from a memorized script, and once satisfied that the vehicle was safe to test in, started to advise my father that “nobody else can be in the car while we-”.  Now noticing the empty interior, the officer stopped short, and asked my Dad where HIS father was.

“Back home”, he answered, matter-of-factly.

“Well, how’d you get down here?” the trooper insisted.

Dad answered simply: “I drove.”

The trooper pulled his pen out of the clipboard, signed Dad’s permit as a “PASS” and sent him on his way.

Hearing him tell that story was perhaps my first exposure to the virtues of a small, efficient, and limited government…