Alexandria, VA – I didn’t learn to drive until I was 26. I had to know. Newly separated with four young children, I needed to find a job outside the home, and that meant driving there. I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., where we walked or took public transportation almost everywhere. In the Washington, D.C. suburbs, where I lived then, I needed to drive to survive.
I’ve never been good at finding my way. If someone said to turn east on Rt. 50, I didn’t know which way was east. In the pre-GPS era, I slowly learned to find my way around town with maps and detailed written instructions printed in large typeface. When I became a professional photographer and had to be someplace at a specific time, I often did a practice run the day before.
Until recently, the only time I haven’t driven myself was when I broke my femur and was sidelined for three months. When I got permission to drive again, I thought this must be how a teenager feels about getting a first license.
I knew that one day I would need to give up driving, but “one day” seemed far away and I thought there would be easy alternatives – like walking. I live just a mile away from the neighborhood shopping center. I didn’t foresee that neuropathy and arthritis would make walking painful at best and possibly not an option.
Lately, I call on my son Steve Halperson to drive me to art exhibits and a few other places. When traffic or finding parking might be hard, I playfully ask him if he’s willing to drive Miss Daisy.
In the 1989 movie, story by Alfred Uhry, Daisy Werthan, an elderly Jewish woman living in Atlanta, is determined to maintain her independence. When she crashes her car, her son, Boolie, arranges for her to have a chauffeur, an African American driver named Hoke Colburn. Uhry’s play was inspired by the relationship between his grandmother and her longtime chauffeur.
I asked for input from my friends Richard Merritt and Christa Watters for this column.
Merritt remembered announcing at his 65th birthday that he intended to surrender his car keys at 80 and hire a driver as needed. When he turned 80, he reneged. He reports that he felt in really good shape. More important, at 78 he’d joined At Home in Alexandria (AHA) (www.athomeinalexandria.org/) as a volunteer. AHA is a grassroots not-for-profit organization founded by and for individuals aged 55 and older who live in Alexandria and want to live independently in their homes. Merritt felt the only skill he could offer was driving other members to appointments or the grocery store.
Then, after an emergency pacemaker operation, he was restricted from driving for three weeks and could take advantage of the very services he provided for others. He notes that AHA also sent a volunteer to weed his garden and replace some light bulbs. He stopped thinking about relinquishing his car keys.
Merritt put me in touch with Bob Faden whom he sometimes drives to visit his wife at a memory care facility in Annandale. Faden explained that growing up in the Bronx, N.Y., he never learned to drive.
Faden met his wife Audrey in 1969. While working as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya, he was introduced to Audrey, the head of the newly created Education Section of the National Museums. She had a deep interest in the flora and fauna of Kenya, and she had a car!
With Peace Corps permission, they were married in 1971. What followed was an extraordinary partnership that brought them to Alexandria in 1980 when Bob was offered a curatorial job in the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History. For a while, Audrey led tours to Africa and painted African wildlife. Eventually, she turned her artistic talents to gardening and landscaping. She designed the Simpson Park Gardens, which were awarded a City of Alexandria Beautification Award this year (2024.)
When Audrey developed memory issues, she decided she would no longer drive. They sold their car and relied on friends for rides. Following a fall in 2021, Audrey’s memory issues worsened, and Bob made the difficult decision to search for a memory care facility. The one selected was neither close nor readily accessible by public transportation. AHA makes it possible for him to visit Audrey twice a week.
Christa Watters writes:
“When aging eyes made me feel it was no longer safe to drive, I gave away my car and considered how to cope.
“Family and friends offered to take me places – kind and willing help. For those of us who relish our independence, the hardest part is to ask for that help. So, I started by figuring out what I could manage on my own. I live in an area where I can walk to two grocery stores, a pharmacy, my bank, the library, and numerous restaurants. Then there is Alexandria’s marvelous DASH bus system, which has a wide range of routes, all shown in a helpful booklet with maps and schedules to get residents to many parts of the city, including Potomac Yard, the West End, and much in between. It takes more planning and more time than just hopping in a car and going, but it’s doable.
“My good gardening friends (Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia) regularly call and ask if I would like a ride to that volunteer garden work party tomorrow or the social gathering next week. My children make sure I get to my medical and dental appointments. I take a cab occasionally; it’s affordable if you think about how much you save by not having a car, and Uber and Lyft are options. Plus, as long as these good old sturdy feet and legs still work, walking is an option.”
Interestingly, one of Christa’s first assignments when volunteering for Master Gardeners was interviewing Audrey Faden. Small world.
And what about this Miss Daisy? In my “Nina way,” I’m planning ahead for “one day.”
Mosaic artist photographer Nina Tisara is founder of Living Legends of Alexandria.
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