As I was taking a short break from work the other day to just walk up the street and back, I saw a high school kid driving a golf cart down our road.
It got me to thinking. Back when I was a kid, probably about his age, the only time I was in a golf cart was occasionally when I played golf with my dad.
Even then, it was seldom we were in a cart. We walked to play golf and it was really good exercise.
When I had a chance to play golf with my friends during my high school years, even my college years, we always walked.
There wasn’t any driving a cart to play golf. There surely wasn’t any driving one on a city or county road just to get from one place to another.
We see kids all the time going up and down our road and others in the neighborhood on golf carts, rather than getting some exercise walking.
They don’t realize how fortunate they are that they don’t have to be afoot and have what I would call the luxury of driving a golf cart.
I realize that many things have changed in the 55-60 years since I was a teenager in high school. Driving a golf cart around as a mode of transportation by a high schooler or someone younger is just one of them.
Some may criticize my way of thinking and I’m not saying that all kids today are out driving a golf cart rather than walking. But there are an awfully lot of them because I see them every day.
If they’re not driving golf carts, many of them are on ATVs, some as young as five and six years old.
Too many of them, unfortunately, don’t know how to operate ATVs and are having collisions, some suffering serious and critical injuries because their parents are allowing it.
Again, I’m not saying that all kids are using ATVs.
But almost every week in my work as a news reporter who monitors reports from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol I see where a collision on one of these has led to a serious injury of a young person or even worse.
Even though it might have been nice to drive a golf cart around or have access to an ATV in my years as a high schooler or even younger, I am grateful that I could walk or have a bicycle to get around.
I don’t regret those days at all.