Last Friday found me in a hurry in Winterset around noon.  When you are in a hurry in Winterset, you go to Hardees.  Why that is, I don’t know.  There are several things that are faster—sit down restaurants for one—a doctor’s office—molasses in January.  Most of the faster options require you to get out of your car.  No one has time for that when they are in a hurry.  No, when you are in a hurry in Winterset, you go to Hardees and wait.

This particular visit started very promising, however.  As soon as the woman said, “Hi,” I asked for a “Western Bacon Thickburger, in a small combo with a diet coke.”  For a moment I left her speechless.  She couldn’t ask me if I wanted it in a combo, nor if I wanted to upsize it, nor what I wanted to drink.  I had snatched all those away from her.  Instead all I had left for her to tell me was the total, which she did, and to ask me to pull around, which I did.

I was getting ready to report the feat to the people at Guinness Records, but when I rounded the building I found a beautiful red Cadillac parked 5 feet away from the drive up window with its door opened.  I parked behind it and dejectedly put my phone back in my pocket.

Looking ahead, I could see a knee that made a swinging attempt to free itself from the inside of the car only to come circling back again.  It was not unlike a metronome, and the attempts were sufficient for me to place it in waltz time, hearing my old high school band instructor counting 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3 from the recesses of my mind.  Finally, instead of a knee, came an outstretched, frail arm, which trembled in double time and reached to grasp the pant leg of the foot that wouldn’t budge.

The man had short sleeves on, and on his forearm one could just make out the wide black lines that were the final remnants of an old tattoo.  Judging by his age, which I would have guessed in the 90s, he acquired it somewhere in World War II.  My hurry became less important, and I began to wonder, given his age and frailty, how he would be able to muster up enough grip to pull this foot free by the pant leg.  What I had failed to take into account, however, was the strength of his will.  This had got him through the war 70 years ago and was what had recently powered him out his driveway, down the few blocks to Hardees, middle-eastern oil be damned.  His trembling fingers squeezed the back of his pant leg and pulled the foot free from the car’s body.

His arms were 90.  His will was not.

He tried to stand up but was unable.  So he sat on the edge of the seat crossways and leant as far out the open door as he could.  The gal inside leant out the drive up window down to her waist.  She passed him his drink, which I waited to splatter on the pavement between them, but no, sheer will won the war again.  Change was made in the same manner, and then she asked him to pull ahead.  Getting back in was as big of a feat as getting out was, but he managed, all the same.

As I came up to take his place, the woman’s loud voice boomed, “I’m not so sure that old man ought to be driving.  He didn’t even order at the screen.”  How his failing to order at the screen was the biggest red flag for her was beyond me.  I waited for my food while he waited for the rest of his.  Looking ahead, I could see his clear eyes looking back at me through his big eye glasses and the rear view.  His window was down.

The gal inside had assumed the old man simply hadn’t the capacity to know that he shouldn’t be driving, that he was unaware of his own limitations.  It might have been true, I suppose, and were it it would be something in common he shared with the rest of us, all unaware of our own limitations and puttering around anyway.  But as for me, I thought his eyes spoke to something different and fancied instead that he knew what he was doing.

Whatever loss he had seen in service, he himself had survived to witness another 70 years of it. By now he had outlived nearly all of his friends and was seeing their children and perhaps his own die of old age.  While old age had forgot about him, time continued to work and each day took a little more of what was once his.  Perhaps he understood that giving up driving altogether was giving up his lone out now.  He saw it for what it was, the loss of the freedom he had once thought he was fighting for.

From time to time, then, he fought still, to charge the light brigade down to Hardees.

This made it look courageous in a way.  Yes, it was the type of courage that could get someone killed, but by now he had seen his fair share of that.  Besides, I wasn’t worried; I met him parked.  Prior to meeting him, perhaps I had forgot about him, just as most of the world and old age had.  The red Cadillac was a flare letting the world know he was in fact still here and waiting at Hardees like the rest of us.