A Driving Lesson To Live By -- Always Turn Right

(From The USA Today -- By Craig Wilson)

A while back, I got a note from my friend REBECCA in DENVER, one of the last people left on Earth who still sits down and writes a chatty letter.

And while it was good to hear from her, it was the card she wrote her note on that caught my attention -- "If you go down the wrong road -- make a right turn" it read.

The advice was written in a child's hand. The author was EBONEE CHAMBERS DOUGLAS, 11.

I liked the message so much that I ripped the front off the card and put it on my refrigerator door, right next to the photo of our new pup, MAGGIE, necking with my mother on the living room sofa.

I now read that bit of advice every morning as I'm reaching for the orange juice -- If you go down the wrong road -- make a right turn.

What could be more simple than that?

All of us have gone down the wrong road at one time or another, and sometimes it has taken us too long to make that right turn. Sometimes we never do. But usually we finally put on the turn signal and go around the corner, happily moving on down the road until we need to adjust our course yet again. (Right on red does not count as changing course.)

My friend HELEN up in SYRACUSE has taken Ebonee's lesson to heart. Helen is a woman of a certain age -- Ok, she's in her 90s -- and she still drives.

I know what you're thinking. She shouldn't be on the road. Especially in Syracuse, which this past winter again won the distinction of being the American city with the most snowfall.

But Helen still drives. The key is she makes only right-hand turns. A brilliant strategy.

Yes, it takes her longer to get from one place to another -- sort of a circuitous approach to travel -- but by making only right-hand turns, she stays close to the curb and never finds herself out in some intersection trying to turn left against oncoming traffic.

It works. So far she has always made it home from her errands safe and sound, and always in time to root for our favorite basketball team, the SYRACUSE ORANGEMEN. This year Helen's rooting was short-lived, but that's another story. They needed to make a few right turns of their own but didn't.

Like Helen, we all adapt with age. My mother, who turns 86 next month, has reluctantly abandoned 3-inch heels. Not that she still doesn't covet them and caress their toes when she spots a pair at NEIMAN's.

A while back, she realized she couldn't navigate on them any longer, knew she was tottering down the wrong road and made a right turn to more sensible, albeit boring, flats.

I'm sure there will come a time when even I will realize it's time to flick on that turn signal.

With any luck, we all become a little bit wiser while moving down life's highway and grow to understand what Ebonee and Helen already know.

Just make a right turn.