It was some 81 years ago that I drove  a tractor for a friend’s dad on the outskirts of Omaha, Nebraska at harvest time.

I had never driven a car before, let alone a tractor. The power of  that vehicle and subsequent jalopies, tin lizzies and then every vehicle imaginable in high school, college and the army made me think I was a pretty good driver.

I came by that smugness honestly. My older brother and I were trained by our dad, Ed, and my mother Anne. Anne even got a certificate from Barney Oldfield, the world’s most famous driver in his day, for being the first female driver to drive to Chicago from Omaha without an adult male in the Buick sedan we had.

My brother Stan and I were toddlers on the ledge behind the double seat where my mother and aunt sat. It took us five days and the roads were single lane dust for the most part (One day, we went for a complete circle trying to follow directions from roadside farmers on the poorly signed roads).

Inspired by mom, I built a racer for use in the Soap Box Derby sponsored by the Omaha World-Herald. I was a car length ahead when the front right wheel came off as I rolled through as winner. I decided against auto racing as a career despite the speed of THE BLUE EAGLE.

I have cranked Model As, Model Ts, Chevvies, and Willys-Overlands through the years. In high school I used to help Norm Lincoln, whose dad sold used cars when he went on a buying trip. Norm always had a pistol and a roll of bills in his locked glove compartment to use when we picked up cars from a particular dealer on the south side of Chicago.

We always towed one car to trade in addition to the one we drove and then picked up four models we wanted to go back to Omaha from Chicago, St. Louis, or Los Angeles. Six years of Jeeps during WWII and Korea.

I also tried trucking bread for a big bakery in Omaha when I needed a job one winter. It was a trailer-truck that did well until I hit a combo of ice and fog just out of a stop on Highway 30 in western Nebraska. I was whipped back and forth for an eternity until the whole outfit was flung onto a huge snowdrift.

I have never hauled so much as a boat since that incident.

Now I am 93. I was still driving, never having hit a moving vehicle, person or animal when we started to have a number of my dear friends of my years have some destructive and tragic accidents, which not only endangers them but also endangers their loved ones.

So, if you see me being driven, don’t be sad, be happy. I’m not going to buy one of those 35,000-buck electric cars that can get up to 100 mph quicker than a drone.

My 98-year-old brother has a driver. It works for him. I miss those 190sls, but I won’t miss staying alive to remember.

— Go with the F.L.O.W. (Ferry Lovers of Washington)