By Kathy Harlan
Over the past year an identical email has arrived in my in-box from
four different friends. It is the kind of touching, honest story they knew
I would like. It was originally published in USA Today and was written
by a man who says his father never drove a car.
“In those days,” he told me when he was in his 90s, “to drive a car
you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet,
and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life
and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it.”
At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed
in: “Oh, bull——!” she said. “He hit a horse.”
“Well,” my father said, “there was that, too.”
 When she was 45, the writer’s mother took up driving, but she and
her husband never made a left turn. They would make three right
turns to avoid turning left and if they lost count they might have to
turn right seven times.
“No left turns,” he repeated. “Several years ago, your mother and I
read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen
when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic. As you get older, your
eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So
your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn.”
In a tribute filled with affection and humor the author reports that
his father lived to be a feisty 102. The reader is not sure whether to
attribute it to good genes, healthy habits, or to the fact that his father
never made left turns.
In addition to enjoying the story, I boasted to my friends that the
author, Michael Gartner, was an old acquaintance of mine. When
we were nineteen years old, we met in Washington D.C. on a college
program. He came from Carleton College in Minnesota and I came
from Redlands University in California. As members of the Washington
Semester program we met Congressmen and judges, reporters and
diplomats, and interviewed key staffers of all three branches of
government. I attended President Eisenhower’s press conference, ate
in the Senate Restaurant, enjoyed the first steak dinner of my life,
attended a new musical called The Bells are Ringing and sat high in the
Senate gallery as statesmen debated. The year was 1958.
The group was small and we spent almost every waking hour
together for a semester. While the participants got along pretty well,
certain small groups formed special friendships. I enjoyed the company
of a group of four or five boys who named themselves “the out group,”
and I kept up with some of them for several years. Mike Gartner was
a member of that group. I believe he had a motor scooter because I
remember riding on the back of one holding on to Mike for dear life.
I did not have a camera – they were expensive – and it took all my
parents could muster to afford me this life-changing opportunity. The
only photographic record I have of that experience is one of the entire
group on the steps of the Capitol Building.
Mike became Michael Gartner and followed his father’s footsteps
in a distinguished journalism career. He worked for the Wall Street
Journal, became a columnist for USA Today,
editor of the Des Moines Register, president of
NBC News, and recently headed the Board of
Regents of the University of Iowa system. Along
the way he bought the Chicago Cubs Triple A
team to satisfy a life-long love of Cubs baseball
and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for editorial
writing. I learned all this from Google, so I was
not surprised that he had written a memoir that
was sent around the world for thousands of people
to enjoy.
“Ah–ha,” said my editors. “This has the makings
of a story.” They suggested that I write to Michael,
renew the friendship, mention his delightful
article, and ask him to make some comments for
this magazine. I said “no,” it had been too long.
Who would remember me after 49 years (although
I was cute, smart, and fun at the time)? But the idea took root, and
eventually I sent a letter to an address I found on the Internet. I didn’t
really expect a reply, I convinced myself and the editors. But in my
heart I sort of hoped for a note that said he was happy to hear from me
and was glad that I enjoyed his writing.
Over a month later I had not heard anything from Iowa. It could
be that he does not remember the vivacious and charming young lady
I used to be those many years ago, I thought. Or maybe he does not
consider it important to respond to a grandmother who writes for a
regional magazine. My note may have been addressed to the wrong
place, been put in the wrong pile by a secretary, or
Mike may be too busy for out-of-the-blue personal
correspondence. Whatever the reason, it was sort
of disappointing. We all want to be memorable.
 BUT WAIT: Six weeks after writing to Mike, I
received a reply. He seemed pleased to hear from
me and he filled me in on the high and low points of
the past half-century. Mike described his life as “a
million terrific moments” and a time of unbearable
grief caused by the sudden death of a 17-year-old
son in 1994. He enclosed a touching tribute he had
written that was published in USA Today. Chris
Gartner will be remembered by people who didn’t
even know him. I was reminded that celebrity, as
reported in the media and discoverable on Google,
is only part of a person’s life.
Mike is awed by the staying power of the “no left
turn” tribute on the Internet, but said the ending had been changed
along the way.
I have considered the possibility of making only right turns. In traffic
and in life. Of playing it safe and taking the long way. But I am a left turn
kind of person and I thank Mike for reminding me of that.
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