Slow ride? Who cares – it's cheap

At last, we have seen the future.

For years, the trucks and SUVs got bigger and bigger, almost to the point of putting your living room – complete with TV, mini-fridge and hot tub – on wheels and setting out on the open road.

Then gas hit four bucks, and it appeared we’d all be issued skateboards or, if we were lucky, an old Schwinn. We would pedal on through heat and cold, snow and rain, using human wit and muscle to get around, lose weight and breathe fumes from the five or six diesel trucks left on the road. All in all, much virtue but not so much fun.

Now, however, comes word that the good people of Albany, Mo., have found the middle way. Folks, we have been saved by golf.

Golf is, or at least used to be, a sport. You strike the ball, pick up your bag of clubs, walk, search for the ball, walk some more, say bad words, “take a drop” – code for “I can’t find it. I give up.” – hit another ball, walk some more, chip over the green three times, then take four putts to finish.

Repeat 17 times.

That’s a lot of walking, which so far as is known is still good for you, but golf got rid of that years ago. This is America. We have little motors to raise and lower our car windows. We invented the electric typewriter and the electric hedge trimmer. We have electric toothbrushes.

So golf had to go electric or be left in the scrap heap of history along with Zoot Suits, communism and such nostalgic ideas as “reading a book” rather than a scanning a blog or staring at YouTube. Thus the golf cart: four wheels, one driver, one passenger, room for clubs and a cooler, shelter from the sun, and lots of cup holders. It’s perfect.

It seems that the folks in Albany, a small town in northwestern Missouri, have petitioned their government for redress and gotten it. How fitting for the Fourth. Taking a cue from retirement communities around the country, they have spoken and said, Duh, driving a golf cart around town is pretty cheap, gaswise, compared with a car or pickup. (No word on how plain old walking measures up.)

The good people of Albany, it is reported, aren’t the first to look into this, and they surely won’t be the last. Maybe we can work in an ethanol subsidy while we’re at it. It doesn’t matter if you’re going slower than a Schwinn. Put a racing stripe down the side, and it’ll be just fine.

I’ve lived half my life in Independence and have given up hope that I’ll ever see sidewalks in my neighborhood, let alone a bike trail. Now come the golf carts – and Gators maybe? – no doubt needing a special lane. Noland Road will never be the same.