Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send email to her at hermionyvidaliabooks@gmail.com.

My oldest granddaughter gets her learner’s permit next spring. I know she will be a responsible driver because she shows responsibility already in her life. But she wasn’t raised to learn to drive on the knees of her parents as my generation was. I have fond memories, as do many other people my age, of our fathers taking us out to the gravel roads and letting us sit on their laps while we steered and they ran the gas and brake pedals on the car. As we got older they would take us out to the gravel roads and let us drive, practicing for the time we would be old enough to take our test.  Farm kids always had a head start because they would begin to drive around the farm at a young age. We could have got pulled over on that country road — but who ever saw police on a gravel road on a Sunday afternoon in the ’50s? The officer would have told us to be careful and not to do it again. But of course, we would.

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I’m going to a junk fair to look at junk different than the junk I already have in my house. It is fun to get ideas of how to use the junk in my house, or maybe a better idea would be to get rid of some of my junk and replace it with someone else’s. The free sign we made to set on our front lawn when we have junk to give away gets good use. Our neighbors borrow it too. There are occasions we don’t get to see what happens to our giveaway valuables on the lawn, because they disappear in the middle of the night. It is much more fun to pass the day and watch the neighbor’s pile disintegrate as passers-by pick through their stuff. It is all I can do to hold myself back and not exchange some of my stuff for theirs. You know what they say: One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.

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I don’t see color in my neighbor’s face until someone reminds me to look for it.

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I am not against peaceful protesting, but I don’t understand the concept of destruction and burning down buildings of people who had nothing to do with the reason you are protesting. It takes away from getting people to listen to the real problem.

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We should be able to hide political commercials on our cable and satellite networks the same way we can hide posts we don’t want to see on Facebook. One click and we could get rid of those annoying and hate-filled messages. Of course, I don’t usually see the commercials because I record and then fast forward, as a result, the candidates are wasting their campaign commercials on me.

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My insurance company keeps calling me with recorded messages reminding me it is time to get certain tests.  They are lucky I answered. Usually, if I hear a canned voice, I immediately hang up. I wish I could do that when I needed service from somewhere. By the time I get done listening to the messages, and the correct key to punch, I forget what it was I wanted in the first place. I used to be a receptionist-switchboard operator. It took seconds to get my party to the right person. They would have been irate in the olden days if they had had to wait to be connected. Now we are resigned to the automatic voices. The only automatic voice I love is Siri. The person whose voice is Siri started following me on Twitter. Being the inquisitive person, I am; I have had online conversations with Susan the Siri voice about her experience of being the voice of Siri. Siri always answers my questions immediately and gets me where I need to go. Companies should hire Siri so when they answer the phone the only thing we have to say is what we need, and they immediately send us to the right live person. Perhaps I love Siri so much because I like the person behind the voice.

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The pieces of my mind that are left have to move on to my next task. I just haven’t figured out what that is.

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I leave you with this challenge today: For one day, don’t read or listen to anything about the elections, don’t listen to anything relating to crime and violence, but take the time to see the joy around you. Watch the little child next door playing with the leaves. Look for the good things happening in your communities, feel the warmth of a friend’s smile. If you are with your friends, talk not about politics, violence or sickness, but the good things in your life. Laugh and enjoy each other’s company.  Leave the shouting of the world out for one day. Will it change your world? It might, even if it is for a short time.

“You have to enjoy life. Always be surrounded by people that you like, people who have a nice conversation. There are so many positive things to think about.” — Sophia Loren