Welcome to Curmudgeonville
Tim GULLA LEDGER STAFF WRITER

I've come to a conclusion recently that I now classify as a curmudgeon.

I looked the word up in a dictionary just to be certain. Sure enough, there it was in plain sight, a "crusty, irascible, cantankerous old person full of stubborn ideas. See Tim."

Ok, I'm not that old and my mind is always open to change. I don't think anyone ever called me "crusty."

Still, if I don't fully qualify as a member of the Ancient Order of Curmudgeons, I know I'm well on the road to being one. At least once a day I find myself starting sentences around the younger folk in the office with phrases such as "In my day ..."

The realization really hit me after I read a recent press release from Allstate Insurance Company on a survey about teen driving habits.

It seems that when teens are given a chance to respond online, which is the chosen form of communication for Generation Y - a generation that tends to use emoticons such as ;^) and abbreviations such as "rotflol" to get a point across in e-mails - they'll admit to behind-the-wheel transgressions.

While the survey showed what most people already know, that teens tend to have a lead foot, it seemed more alarming that about one in five teens openly acknowledged racing at one time or another.

Now, I've done silly things on the roadway in years past, but nothing too silly. My first car, a little Pontiac Sunbird, was made for good fuel mileage. Racing was not in the cards unless a Yugo pulled up beside me.

"Eat my dust!"

"Wow, he's pulling ahead!"

I seem to have grown up in a simpler time, when cell phones had just started downsizing from "bag phones," if anyone remembers those.

You could spot the rich folk by the cell phone antennaes on their cars, or pretend to be one by buying a fake at the dollar store.

Now it seems one out of every two drivers, regardless of age, has a cell phone surgically attached to their ear.

And how about turn signals? In my day cars had them.

Whether it's a BMW or a Chevy, it seems more cars today are equipped instead with mental telepathy units that, through some unseen force, tell you which way they will turn.

Oh, and what about those darn "kryptonite" headlamps that burn your retinas? It doesn't matter if they're coming at you or from behind you, because blindness is assured.

And don't get me started on tailgaters.

Then there are the multi-taskers. Honestly, I actually once saw a driver with a phone between her ear and shoulder, a McDonald's wrapper in one hand, a cigarette and coffee cup in the other, checking out her makeup in the mirror.

That, my friends, takes true talent.

I can go on and on, and the fact I can go on and on proves I am, indeed, well on the way to Curmudgeonville.

And becoming a curmudgeon means I can now sympathize with my father.

A flight instructor in the Navy earlier in his life, he once taught other pilots how to do barrel rolls and other aerobatic maneuvers with manly names like "hammerhead stall."

Today, he drives 5 mph less than posted speed limits.

Whenever we went somewhere together in the past, I'd sit in the passenger seat with an urge to reach my foot over and press the gas pedal for him. But I've come to the realization he's been on to something.

We get where we need to go. We get there safely. And we usually catch up at traffic lights to all the people who passed him while flipping us the bird. "Back at you buddy!"

I'm getting more like him in my own driving habits, but we still differ.

My dad's a quiet guy by nature whereas I take after my mother.

I'm the one who has to yell out the window when someone offends my driving sensibilities.

"Put down the (darn) phone already!" "Oops. Sorry Reverend. My bad. You really can't blame me though. See, I'm a curmudgeon."