{"id":44172,"date":"2024-05-26T19:31:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-26T23:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/?p=44172"},"modified":"2024-05-21T12:37:16","modified_gmt":"2024-05-21T16:37:16","slug":"younger-and-fearless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/younger-and-fearless\/","title":{"rendered":"YOUNGER AND FEARLESS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Penny For Your Thoughts By: Nancy Whitaker\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was I braver when I was younger or did we just live in different times? I remember when I was 20 (long time ago) I had a husband, 2 little girls at home, worked 6 days a week in a restaurant and went to Ft. Wayne on Saturdays where I took computer classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes we had some computers back then, but they were big and tricky to operate. I got a fairly decent job after computer school and worked second shift. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yep, I drove back and forth from Scott to Ft. Wayne getting off of work at midnight. Driving, I ran into bad weather, a run in with a cop, flat tires, got lost a few times and got a few tickets. However, I wasn\u2019t afraid of night driving or the lateness of the hour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After working for a while I bought a 1968 Dodge. It was one of the \u201cwhite hat\u201d deals and I\u00a0felt so proud to drive that car. I\u00a0bet it would be worth money today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One late night driving home, I saw a police car behind me. I thought to myself \u201cI haven\u2019t done anything wrong so, I am going to see how fast my car will go and let him chase me.\u201d\u00a0I pushed down my gas pedal and away I went. \u00a0Mr policeman was flashing his lights and his sirens were\u00a0full blast.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, he chased\u00a0me from a small town (Payne)\u00a0clear out to SR\u00a0114. \u00a0I thought, well I am already in trouble, so may as well and keep going until\u00a0I reach 114.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr.\u00a0Deputy asked me where I was going to\u00a0so fast? It was close to 1 am and he probably thought I had been drinking. Nope, I don\u2019t drink.\u00a0Then,\u00a0he observed my 1968 car with the white hat in the back window and wanted to see all of the required documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I seriously believe he thought that I was driving a stolen car! I thought I would get a ticket but he let me go on home. Thank you Lord!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still can\u2019t believe how brave I was back then. Today I would be scared to death to drive to Ft. Wayne and drive home at midnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One time during my fearless days, I decided to try a new way home from work.\u00a0Thinking it might be a shorter way and a faster route\u00a0I traveled my new way home. Wow! Different scenery and it was fun because I felt really smart.\u00a0Hmmm,\u00a0I\u00a0went through Woodburn, Goshen and other\u00a0little towns that were not familiar to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had no cell phones back then, so I just had to rely on my own sense of direction which was not good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought I would never find my way home. However, I did, but was 3\u00a0hours late. My family was scared something had\u00a0happened to me and were\u00a0about ready to go looking for their brave,\u00a0lost Mama. After that I just took the way I knew\u00a0to work and back.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the years, however, my fear of things have increased. Basically I am scared of many things and\u00a0don\u2019t know if I am being careful or just a\u00a0plain scaredy cat. I am scared to travel alone at night, scared of water, crickets, chickens,\u00a0dentists, and doctors.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my biggest fears is a mouse. Those little rodents not only scare me, but both my Mom and grandma used to stand on top of chairs and scream and scream if a mouse was ever spotted in the house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course I jumped on a chair too and hollered because they did and till this day I would rather see a crocodile than a mouse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think as age approaches us, we tend to be more careful of what we do, where we go and even what we eat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, I felt invincible when I was young, but now I am just a big chicken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How brave were you or how brave are you now? What are some of the scariest things you have done? Let this old chicken know and I\u2019ll give you a Penny For Your Thoughts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Penny For Your Thoughts By: Nancy Whitaker\u00a0 Was I braver when I was younger or did we just live in different<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,12771],"tags":[12838,12839,22417],"class_list":["post-44172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-pennies-for-your-thoughts","tag-nancy-whitaker","tag-penny-for-your-thoughts","tag-younger-and-fearless"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Nancy-Whitaker.jpg?fit=318%2C324&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YQd9-bus","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 14:40:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44173,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44172\/revisions\/44173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}