Originally Posted by
Gear_Admiral
Here is what others and I am reading from your previous posts in this thread: "I'm a vegetarian, except for the steak meals my spouse makes for me every week and the bacon I have every morning..."
Correction..."I'm a vegetarian but my wife is not. Every morning I smell her bacon cooking, and every evening I smell her grilling chicken, steaks, or hamburger, but I do not eat it because she paid for it (I'm too cheap to buy meat) and only buys enough for her."
Does SMELLING the meat cancel my vegetarianism? Or having it AVAILABLE in the house but it does not belong to me?
Originally Posted by
Gear_Admiral
If you had just said, "I'm a fit bike commuter who just hit his 60s, but the American infrastructural landscape and the American health care system pretty much have forced me to go from being car-light to commuting daily in an automobile. :-(" then the reactions would have been far different.
Just to set the record straight: I still commute by bike (walk or skate) to work. The car is like a motor home - weekend recreational use. I might drive to the doctor if I'm sick also.
Originally Posted by
Gear_Admiral
Just as those you have set to ignore may judged you hastily, you may be judging hastily, too. They may see someone with de facto regular access (though not constant or on-demand access) to a car, space to store said car, the income to afford said car, and a spouse who can use said car to run errands as someone unable to truly understand what it is like to live 100% car-free in America. I would place people like myself in the car-free category: only driving very occasionally in a rental once every four months or not at all. People in this position by choice, money, location, or some combination have legitimate reasons for disputing your self-description of having been car-free for thirty years.
I was car-free AND wife free for the first 10 years after ditching my car and motorcycle at 30 years of age. Zero access to anything except taxi service and rental cars. So yes, I know what it means to be "car-free" to purists. The world isn't binary, thank God.