Re-run Sunday: Turn the page, a Seger salute

Dang. Missed Bob Seger last night. Never seen him. We spent the night in Washington researching a jiffy travel story about the new “Christmas on the Potomac” celebration at the Gaylord National Resort.

But I’ll have Seger on my mind today and so will a lot of western Pennsylvania. You can read the Post-Gazette review here and I thought I’d add to the conversation with this re-run of a story I wrote in January about why Seger’s as great as Springsteen and Petty.

Right now, guaranteed, some kid in a coffee shop is trying to update the classic 1973 Bob Seger song, “Turn the Page,” for the Kindle crowd.

Perhaps he’ll call it “Swipe the Screen.”

And for that he should be summarily executed.

I was listening to the great live version of “Turn the Page” the other day and it dawned on me that some day young rockers of taste may wonder just what that phrase meant.

On a long and lonesome highway, east of Omaha,

You can listen the engine moaning out as one long song

You can think about the woman, or the girl you knew the night before

But your thoughts will soon be wandering the way they always do

When you’re ridin’ 16 hours and there’s nothing much to do

And you don’t feel much like ridin’, you just wish the trip was through

The thought that page-turning books are doomed to become anachronisms must mortify Seger, 65, who, now that the Beatles have gone digital, remains one of the last major artists refusing to bow to iTunes. If you want a Seger CD, you have to buy a Seger CD, a notion so quaint it practically wears doilies.

I can’t speak for Seger -- heck, I can’t even speak to Seger -- but I’ll bet he thinks the process of downloading things you’re intended to love is similar to phone sex.

The end result is the same, but the essential emotion is missing.

After the quickie transaction, the only thing left behind to hold is a cheap receipt for your wife to find and use to forever ridicule and humiliate you until you feel eternal shame for your tawdry actions.

Or so I’m told.

Here I am, on the road again

There I am, up on the stage

Here I go, playing the star again

There I go

Turn the page

I’m betting Seger doesn’t own a Kindle.

It’s another hefty weight on the scale lurching toward the side I’ll likely never own one either.

I love my iPod, its portability and the way I can play any of the thousands of songs that for that moment mirror my mood.

But I feel a tiny jolt of euphoria whenever I buy a book. It’s the same feeling I got when I bought “Night Moves” in 1976. I loved holding it, smelling it, reading the liner notes and imagining myself with hippie hair like Seger and the all boys from the Silver Bullet Band had.

But books, actual books, mean even more to me. I love being in an airport and having a promiscuous stranger comment about a shared interest in a Tony Horwitz or Greg Olear's "fathermucker."

And I love my library. I have more than 300 books I’ve purchased and read over the past 25 years. I love going back and referring to something I learned or something that meant so much to me.

I love lending them out to friends, even the ones who never give them back.

Well, you walk into a restaurant, strung out from the road

And you feel the eyes upon you as you’re shaking off the cold

You pretend it doesn’t bother you, but you just want to explode

Most times you can hear ‘em talk, other times you can’t

All those same old cliches, is that a woman or a man?

And you always seem outnumbered, you don’t dare make a stand

(repeat chorus)

Like many music lovers, I usually fail to list Seger as one of my all-time favorites. It’s a criminal oversight.

His is a towering musical legacy. His peak pop years (roughly 1975-1988) match up as well as Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen for musical muscle and enduring catchiness.

I so admired his 1995 decision to walk away from music to just loaf and raise a family that I did the exact same thing -- even though, at the time, it was five years before I even had a family.

Seger’s return album, his most recent, was “Face the Promise” from 2006. It’s a credible effort, but I hunger for more depth and nuance.

I’d like to see producer extraordinaire Rick Rubin come in and do a stripped-down Seger the way he did with another legend, Johnny Cash. Seger was writing outstanding weary songs about aging (“Against The Wind,” “Like a Rock”) when he was in his late 30s and early 40s. I’d love to hear his musings on aging as he becomes vintage.

Out there in the spotlight you’re a million miles away

Every ounce of energy, you try to give away

As the sweat pours out your body like the music that you play

Later in the evening as you lie awake in bed

With the echoes from the amplifiers ringing in your head

You smoke the day’s last cigarette, remembering what you said

(repeat chorus two more times with increasing menace)

And I think I know why he does not.

It’s pride. He doesn’t want to dilute one of the most outstanding catalogues of authentic American music.

So instead of berating readers with any more thoughts about Kindle and the inevitable trudge of technological intrusions, I’m going to finish the week by saluteing Seger and some my favorite songs of this great American rocker who now seems content to spend most of his time in what I guess is a different kind of great American rocker.

If you’re not interested, then feel free to just go about your web browsing.

Go ahead, turn the page . . .

Damn those nasty anachronisms!

• “Rock ‘n’ Roll Never Forgets,” 1978 -- So I’m a little bit older and a lot less bolder than I used to be. So? This one will get my heart hammering when I’m a toothless relic at the Sunny Rest Retirement Home. It’s his homage to his hero, Chuck Berry: “All Chuck’s children are out there playin’ his licks! So come back, baby! Rock ‘n’ roll never forgets!”

• “Sunspot Baby,” 1976 -- I often start pointless bar arguments saying this is one of the three greatest rock ‘n’ roll songs ever written (the arbitrary others are “I Saw Her Standing There” and the deliciously filthy “Star Star” by the Rolling Stones). It’s just nonsense because it might not even be one of Seger’s three best. But every time I hear this song -- and I hear it all the time -- I think, man, I’m right on the money about that one.

• “Roll Me Away,” 1982 -- This song about a romantic tramp who runs away with a drunken motorcyclist is my wife’s favorite. It’s also the reason I never let Val out of my sight whenever we go into a biker bar.

• “Still the Same,” 1977 -- The lyrics are enigmatic. I can’t tell if it’s about a gambler, a lover or a destitute brother. Doesn’t matter. The dude’s no damn good. Yet the singer feels resigned to steadfastness. Feels to me like the kind of human hangover we all have in our lives.

• “The Fire Inside,” 1988 -- A percussive beat, pounding piano and Seger’s urgent growl make this the best Seger song most people have never heard. I’d advise you to download it, but Seger won’t let me.

• Against the Wind,” 1980 -- I don’t know whether I was wise when I was 17 and first heard this masterpiece or if being exposed to songs like this at 17 made me wise, but I knew even then exactly what he was talking about: This living ain’t for sissies. “Wish I didn’t know now, what I didn’t know then.” What magnificent poignancy.

• “Feel Like a Number,” 1978 -- Still makes me yearn to form a federated brother/sisterhood of underemployed bloggers and freelance writers just so we could sing this one at all the rowdy union meetings.

• “The Ring,” 1986 -- I think for any songwriter to be truly great, they must have an empathetic feel for how a woman thinks. I doubt any woman -- or man -- in an unfulfilling and empty marriage could write a better song about matrimonial desolation than this. Unhappy people listen at your own risk.

• “American Storm,” 1986 -- Bruce Springsteen is justifiably known for his songs about America. I think his best is “This Hard Land.” I think Seger’s “American Storm” is better.

• Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll,” 1977 -- This was the second most played song in the history of jukeboxes, behind only Patsy Cline’s “Crazy.” Its iconic status was cemented in 1983 when Tom Cruise danced to it in “Risky Business,” thus Tom Cruises’s finest moment was one of Seger’s.

When men tell men they're becoming fathers

I was privileged to take part in a sacred ceremony last night. Matt told me he and his wife are having a baby. Their first.

I was the first person outside of his parents he’d told.

He’s a former student of mine and it’s fair to say I’m a sort of mentor to him. He tells me he’d like to be just like me.

And he’s not at all referring to frequent episodes of drunken revelry, ample hammock time and an apparent ability to skate through life with no visible means of support.

He wants to be a writer like me.

I have trouble wrapping my head around that ambition. He’d heard me for 13 weeks nearly two years ago profess what a failure I consider my career.

I’ve written for many prominent magazines -- once or twice. I wake up nearly every night troubled by my inability to earn money. The stack of rejection letters my most cherished book projects have drawn are now thicker than the books themselves.

I’m flattered he thinks I’m such a great writer because he, indeed, is a great writer. He’s already written many important stories for prestigious magazines.

So he may never write like me.

To write like me, I tell him, you need to become seasoned by decades of failure.

I think what he admires most about me, and this is admirable, is I’ll never quit.

We get together for beers in Pittsburgh maybe once every six months or so to talk career. He gives me bona fide contacts to top magazines he’s sure will be interested in running my stories and I tell him about my latest career humiliation.

When I say what he told me is sacred, I mean that. It happens in a bar, not a church. It is consecrated not with sacramental wines, but with intoxicating spirits.

It’s not the kind of thing you tell your buddies right away. I don’t know any guys that run out in the street to scream their wives are having a baby -- not unless they want to get run over by a bus.

You don’t want to tell a common moron who’ll blurt out, “Man, is your life going to change!”

I heard that so often I reflexively began responding, “Well, that’s good, because up ‘til now it has really, really sucked!”

You want to tell someone who appears reassuring that fatherhood isn’t going to lay devastation to your happy young life.

I had to go clear to Florida to find my guy. I was there doing a story about the carnival industry.

He was a perfect stranger and one of the reasons I’ll always sit next to strangers in bars I’ve never been to.

He was a big guy, kind of quiet, but looked capable of making a lot of noise if things got rough.

We hardly said a word to one another for an hour. We just sat there sipping beer and watching the baseball game.

Then it became a guy’s version of speed dating: Where you from? What do you do? You golf? My grass needs cut. The bartenders are all cool here. Yeah, I hate the Red Sox, too.

He smiled sunshine when he mentioned he had two little girls. About an hour later we were new best friends and I said, you know, you’re the first guy I’ve told but I found out last week I’m going to be a dad.

It was like I blasted him with happy lightning.

He told me the moment I held my new child would be the happiest day of my life and every day would get better after that. He told me bedtime stories would become the highlight of my day. He told me nothing I achieved in my career would make me as happy as waking up every day knowing I am a father.

And he told me a lie.

He said he was a landscaper.

He was a prophet.

I said goodbye to Matt and said a parking lot prayer he achieves all his ambitions and becomes just like me.

A happy man who happens to write.

Jesus, Tebow's a winner

I was confused the first time I saw the Denver Bronco jerseys with the name Jesus above the no. 15.

I try and follow the NFL draft news, but was unaware Jesus Christ from, I guess, Nazareth State was eligible. I felt a flush of chagrin the Pittsburgh Steelers drafted an Ohio State defensive end over the King of Kings.

Jesus, I’m sure, has range, plays hurt and brings a host of intangibles like the ability to turn Gatorade into wine, which I think sideline sophisticates would appreciate.

Then I realized my mistake. The Broncos didn’t draft Jesus.

The jerseys were referring to Tim Tebow, a devout Christian and the most controversial player in a league rostered with wife beaters, drunk drivers, dog fighters and manslaughter convicts.

And what does a straight arrow milk-sipper like Tebow do that’s so controversial?

He wins.

He’s won three of his last four games, a better winning percentage than league stars Tom Brady and Michael Vick.

I hope he wins the Broncos straight into the playoffs.

I know what you’re thinking, “Holy reversals! Aren’t you the guy who just last year wrote you were hoping to see Satanic end zone celebrations to honor the Prince of Darkness?”

That’s true. I find overt Christian intrusions in sports annoying. I think devout running backs should thank offensive lineman because they, not Jesus, open holes in the Red Zone.

But I see a key difference with Tebow in contrast to other Christ-honoring NFL stars.

Tebow stinks.

He is the worst quarterback in the game. Maybe one of the worst ever.

He fails at one of the key quarterback requirements teams need to win games.

He’s can’t toss a football.

In order to make a catch, receivers usually need the oddly-shaped ball to approach them in a tight spiral. Tebow’s passes spin wildly out of control like aerobatic planes moments before air show tragedies.

Then there’s this. The ball needs to be thrown in the vicinity of where the receiver is. And until they change the rules so a player can catch a ball on a bounce, it can’t be 10 feet short of the intended target.

Tebow’s coaches are beginning to understand these weaknesses and game plan so their quarterback will have to do as little quarterbacking as possible.

For instance, in Monday’s game Green Bay Packer quarterback Aaron Rogers, right now the game’s best, completed 25 of 32 passes in a 45-7 stomping of the Minnesota Vikings. Thirty attempts per game is about average.

On Sunday, the Broncos let Tebow throw just eight times in the entire game. He completed two. Two! That’s lousy.

And what drives the NFL analysts nuts is, good gracious, he won again. The Broncos beat the Kansas City Chiefs 17-10.

Tebow winning infuriates the sports military-industrial complex of commentators at ESPN who are on a mission to exalt the NFL as the realm of god-like immortals.

They don’t know what to make of a man who doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a mortal who likes God.

The fundamentalist Christian in America has few foes more fierce than I. I hate their politics, their bigotries and the divisive pain they inflict on families. These are Tebow’s biggest fans.

I don’t presume his critics hate him because of his Christian beliefs. They hate him because he’s guilty of the blasphemy of proving them wrong in their religion.

He defies their sacred charts that say a QB has to be upright in the pocket, look off multiple receivers and deliver the throws with righteous Old Testament authority.

And with every victory, they become more exasperated.

Tebow seems positively unfazed by their often cruel criticisms.

He’s one of those rare guys who seems strengthened by crucifixion.

I root for guys like that, even when some of their biggest fans act like obnoxious jerks.

Movember getting hairy for mustache men

For a moment I felt like the misfit bully in the AT&T commercials who believes his co-workers are deliberately excluding him from the hall taco party outside Bill’s office.

Then I realized a key difference. He thinks people make fun of him.

As for me, I now know they do. I know this because for the past 15 days they’ve been in my face.

And it’s all because of what’s on my face.

Yes, it’s Movember!

That’s November with a “Mo” to go. Mo is Australian slang for mustache.

Five days ago I’d never heard of Movember, an Australian export that didn’t hit the U.S. until 2007. Now it consumes me.

Movember is doing for November and prostate cancer what pink ribbons did for October and breast cancer.

Organizers have since 2004 raised a whopping $174 million by encouraging every man on the planet to grow a mustache for the month. That’s all. People donate money to men who’ll grow mustaches and the many mos generate awareness.

It’s like a charity 5K for couch potatoes.

They call it the “hairy ribbon.”

It is to me it is one of the most ingenious fundraisers ever conceived. It’s a perfectly manly way to reach men about an area they’re often reluctant to discuss. And I’m not talking about their funny bones.

I did this story about it for msnbc.com after learning Qantas had decorated a terminal building and Boeing 737-800 with really cheesy mustaches style savvy people make fun of.

Apparently like mine.

Adam Garone, one of four co-founders of Movember told me he and his mates were sitting around a Melbourne backyard in 2003 discussing how every fashion recycles. All but one.

In my mind I picture them all there, drunk and very Aussie cool.

“We talked about mustaches and how popular they were in the 1970s and ‘80s,” he said. “But they never came back. We decided to devote the month to growing mustaches, mate.”

(He didn’t say “mate,” but I added it for antipodean color.)

Expecting support, they received scorn.

“Oh, my girlfriend hated it,” he said. “My boss said the mustache made me so ugly he wouldn’t let me go out on sales calls. It was sooo ugly.”

I admit I live a cloistered life, but when did the mustache fall out of favor? When did it become a topic for cool people to ridicule?

Could I have somehow missed an important fashion memo?

I’ve been rockin’ the ‘stache since 1985. I like it because it conceals and distracts numerous other flaws ranging across my face. Without the mustache, people’s eyes might go to the moles, the bloodshot eyes, scars and other mug-ravaging deformities.

I hope one day my mustache grows up and becomes Sam Elliott’s mustache.

What would Mark Twain be without his mustache? How about the over-looked acting genius Burt Reynolds? He had a great ‘stache that matched the color of that black Trans Am that caused Sheriff Buford T. Justice so much manly trouble.

Just about everyone in my bar has thick mustaches -- including half the gals.

Are we that hillbilly backward?

Apparently so. A little research revealed we’re a minority that needs protecting.

That’s where the American Mustache Institute comes in (motto: “Protecting the rights of, and fighting discrimination against mustached Americans by promoting the growth, care and culture of the mustache”).

While I’ve been stationary, I somehow became part of a movement.

So while I fully support Movember and its noble goals I kindly ask they rescind ‘stache bashing as part of their promotions.

Would it be acceptable if the joke was on African-Americans? Bi-sexuals? Chrome domes?

All we mustachioed men ask is to be treated like equals, to get a fair shake, and to have the results of our prostate exams come back clean.

And then maybe we’ll enjoy the fruits of what other minorities, mustachioed and otherwise, have earned.

We’ll be Mo-vin’ on up!

Pill disposal hard to swallow

The doctor’s office I suspected was staffed by zombies is proving difficult to kill.

I can tolerate a lot of professional incompetence if it is delivered with a smile. Bumbling is one thing, but I draw the line at surly bumblers.

That’s what was happening with Mom’s last doctors. They were terrible.

They were unfriendly. They acted like caring for our loved ones was a crushing inconvenience.

The atmosphere in the office was poisonous, which I guess is good for business if to thrive you need a steady stream of sick people.

So I yanked Mom out there six months ago after finding a doctor who’s so country friendly I could pay him in chickens and he’d give me eggs for change.

But the old doctors keep rising from the dead with tiny capsule-sized reminders they can’t be killed.

It was a rookie mistake, I know, but when the pharmacy called and said there were drugs to pick up, I didn’t question. I went, stood in line and paid $18.80 for Donepezil, $35.15 for Namenda, and $12.70 for Remembron.

The names may sound like pixie characters from one of my 5-year-old Fairytopia movies, but don’t be fooled: They are powerful pharmaceuticals used to improve Mom’s memory, ease her anxieties and help her snooze.

And none of them work even one little bit.

But the old docs excelled at prescribing them. They were their Chicken Soup for the Soul if the soul is troubled by anything they can’t diagnose or fix.

And they came unbidden. Long after I’d told the docs she was no longer their patient, the pills kept coming.

I realized my mistake when I got them home. I figured I’d take them right back.

Regular readers of this blog which cheerfully celebrates my own bumbling can predict what happened next.

I never got around to it. I must have carried them into the grocery store 10 times and 10 times either got distracted or decided the line was too long.

So after a month, knowing full well how this story was going to end, I called the pharmacist.

Can I return these? She’s not taking them any more, but her old doctor keeps sending them. They’re still in the stapled bags with all the receipts and tamper-proof seals in place.

“Sorry, it’s too late.”

Of course. That’s what I figured. Well, how can I dispose of them?

“You have bring in here. We have disposal bags for $3.50. That’s the only safe way to get rid of them.”

Can I flush ‘em?

“No that could harm the water supply.”

Can I dig a hole and bury them?

“No, sir. That’s environmentally unsound. You need to bring them in.”

I could see where this was going so I resisted the urge to ask if I could tie them to a really big balloon, line them up one-by-one on the train track or pack them in the Acme dynamite I remember seeing Wile E. Coyote use against The Roadrunner.

But I did have one more question about one way I could dispose of these dangerous and earth-slaying little toxins.

Could I feed them to Mom?

“Uh . . . sure!”

But I’m not going to do that.

About a day after that conversation I learned Oct. 29 was National Prescription Take-Back Drugs Day. The DEA initiative aims to reduce the amount of prescription drugs that could fall into the hands of the more than 7 million Americans who abuse or are addicted to them.

I blinked twice when I read the haul from the previous year totaled 309.

Not 309 pills.

It was 309 TONS of pills.

And I’m left to wonder how they dispose of what must be four or five barge-sized-containers filled with unwanted pills when I can’t get rid of about 60 of them.

Oh, well. It’s only 349 shopping days until the next take-back drug day. I guess I’ll have to wait.

If the knowledge that we live in such drug-saturated times dismays you, please get in touch.

I think I have a pill for that.

Re-run Sunday: Fake boobs to confound real ones

This one enjoyed a mini-surge this week. It charms me whenever readers revive some of these old stories. This was from March 2009. I re-read it and thought, you know, you don't hear foreign policy arguments like this on "Meet the Press." It's a pity. Read on and I think you'll agree.

This is bound to be controversial, but here goes: for the good of our national interests, Hillary Clinton needs a boob job.

I’m not talking something that will enhance the Secretary of State’s already womanly figure. I’m talking about porn tits. Major league yabos. Ta tas ‘til Tuesday.

And, yes, she needs to do this for Uncle Sam, and to be perfectly clear, I’m referring to the symbol of our shared national interests here and not the lecherous uncle who used to make you fish through his pockets for bent Tootsie Rolls.

This diplomatic overture occurred to me after I skimmed a recent story about how Sarah Palin’s voluptuous looks may have actually worked against her during the 2008 election -- and let’s again take a moment to revel in the marvelous reality show of a race that was.

It wasn’t too long ago that every national election involved four uniformly boring white men. The introduction of an unknown babe like Palin was a sensation that just keeps on giving. It’s impossible for her to say something that doesn’t enliven each and every news cycle when she manages to pry herself away from the tedium of North Pole politics.

We can all be grateful that she, her whack job family and pill-popping in-laws are going to be electrifying the national news for at least the next 30 years (and those of us who lean liberal can be grateful she’s a solid conservative).

Whether her dynamite looks cost her votes is disputable. But no one can argue the impact she had on the global politics when she made a memorable show biz visit to the United Nations.

To me, it was the highlight of the whole election. Palin handlers ushered her through a day of drive-by meetings with leaders from hotspots around the world.

It may have been the first time in history a push-up bra was deployed to demonstrate gravitas.

Fox News immediately trumpeted the predictable reaction of these dour men from mostly authoritarian countries to being greeted by the jiggly Palin: “Foreign leaders enthusiastically endorse Palin. . .”

Typically, Fox only gave half the headline and left out ". . . for their harems!”

No reaction was more comical than that of Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari, the still grieving widower of assassinated premier Benazir Bhutto. He used his face time with Palin to gush on camera, “You are so gorgeous! Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you.”

When an aide suggested the two shake hands, Zardari beamed boyish sunshine and said, “If he’s insisting, I might hug!”

He did regain enough focus to talk some strategy.

“And how does one keep looking that good when one is that busy?” he asked.

Yes, love was in the air.

It occurred to me that Zardari and men like him are still living in the ‘60s. The 1360s. They’ve never had a chance to enjoy lusty relations or bawdy ambitions with someone like the comely Sarah. It’s a pity and I think the unnatural repression is a reason that many fundamentalists around the world become so kill crazy. They’re stuck home alone on weekends with their religious studies while everyone else is out getting some.

It sort of reminds me of the unfulfilled longings from my own adolescence, except my internal frustrations boiled to the surface in the form of, not homicidal mayhem, but sprawling fields of unsightly facial pimples.

Make no mistake: We are at war with fundamentalists who resent our way of life, our exuberant liberty and the fact that they can’t put women like Palin in a drab burqa and a stifling muzzle (in reflective moments, John McCain probably shares half that sentiment).

That’s why Hillary needs to get some massive new boobs, some low cut dresses and a bra that’ll shove those hooters right up under the noses of our fundamentalist enemies.

She needs to look them in the eye, dare them to maintain eye contact and say, “This is who we are. Like it or not, this is the future and there’s not a thing you can do about it. And maybe you should loosen up that turban and think about giving it a try, big boy.”

It would make Hillary an historic feminist icon around the Muslim world and might eventually lead to seismic changes in how Arab males treat women.

Now, if I could just find a powerful politician with enough international respect to articulate the wisdom behind this groundbreaking diplomatic initiative . . .

I wonder if Bill Clinton would think this is a good idea.

Kids driving too early, drinkin' too late

Royal Caribbean cruise lines is to be applauded for lowering their on-board drinking ages in some progressive ports to 18.

I hope our our state governments double down and lower them to 14.

That’s when kids, I think, are old enough to drink. Not in a bar, certainly. The age of bar patrons should be up to the discretions of wise bar owners within the law.

I remember once when some giddy kids came into my favorite dive and betrayed their youth by ordering three Zimas. Remember those? They were a mildly alcoholic beverage so sickly sweet whiskey drinkers like me would pour them on our Lucky Charms.

The order tipped the cranky bartender right off. He needed to see some IDs.

Proud as punch, the kids blurted out, “Oh, we’re all legal! We’re 23.”

The bartender, a foul-mouthed old Marine said, “Get the hell out. You can’t drink in here ‘til you’re 30.”

If these kids had been drinking since they were 14, they’d know how to behave in a real bar and would save the Zimas for the precious little sixth graders.

I know some parents will disagree and say it’s irresponsible. Kids aren’t ready to drink at such a precocious age. They believe more young drinkers will increase highway mayhem.

I’m way ahead of you.

When you lower the drinking age to 14, you raise the driving age to 27.

This would overnight reduce traffic and fuel consumption by 15 percent. Gas prices would plummet. Air quality would improve. Rush hour traffic would be a breeze.

The sole exception to the kids-can’t-drive-till-they’re-adults rule would be in cases when they’re needed as designated drivers for drunk parents.

Have you been following this story? You may have missed it in the crush of news about Penn State, Herman Cain and, um, oh . . . I can’t remember the third one . . .

Oh, yeah! Rick Perry’s inability to remember three things!

I’m talking about Detroit drunk Shawn Weimer, 39, who was arrested October 8, even though he was responsible enough to get a sober designated driver.

Unfortunately for him, the sober designated driver was his daughter and she’s 9. Nine! A judge is right now deciding whether the charge deserves felony or misdemeanor consideration.

It’s a fascinating case. The girl is seen on multiple security videos expertly maneuvering the vehicle from her booster seat.

She’s obviously a capable motorist, but she was pulled over at 3 a.m. so she’s bound to be in violation of some nitpicky Michigan bedtime law. How would you rule?

One of my favorite Alan Jackson songs is a 2002 country ditty called “Drive.” It’s about his fond memories of his father letting him take the wheel when they drove trash to the town dump.

It was just an old hand-me-down Ford

Three-speed on the column, a dent in the door

A young boy, two hands on the wheel

I can’t replace the way it made me feel!

And I would press that clutch and I would steer it right

And he’d say, ‘A little slower, son, you’re doin’ jus’ fine!’

Just a dirt road with trash on each side,

But I was Mario Andretti when Daddy let me . . .

Drive!

The song concludes with him sharing the soul-soothing pleasure he gets letting his own young daughters drive. It’s magnificent.

So, of course, I let both my lap-mounted daughters, ages 11 and 5, take turns steering the Saturn Vue on Sunday mornings at the empty mall parking lot.

They love it and I know I’m making memories that’ll last lifetimes.

It never occurred to me until after reading about Weimer that I could add to the family fun by getting all gooned up while the kids are in Sunday school.

I’ll conclude by wishing you all a wonderful weekend. Relax. Have fun.

And if you’re going to drink, please do so responsibly.

Have a sober 9-year-old available to drive.