{"id":2155,"date":"2023-10-26T02:27:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T02:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=2155"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:32:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:32:46","slug":"end-of-an-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=2155","title":{"rendered":"END OF AN ERA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Melissa and I took one step closer to being empty nesters today: Sarah drove herself to school today in her own car.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Melissa didn&#8217;t drop her off and I didn&#8217;t pick her up. Something we&#8217;ve been doing in one way or another for our kids for about 17 years or more.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">About a month ago Sarah found a cute little 2007 VW bug convertible and put down several thousand dollars (representing untold hours of scooping ice cream) to make it her own.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But there were a couple of minor mechanical issues the dealer was wanting to take care of before letting Sarah take possession.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A &#8220;few days&#8221; turned into several weeks. Sarah was impatiently patient.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Finally, the call came: the bug was ready to go.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So yesterday after school, I drove Sarah, Melissa and Grandma Trudy the hour to Rushville where the three of them promptly dumped me to ride in the bug, with its top down, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20231024_174809-3-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"4000\" height=\"3000\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20231024_175120-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2146\" height=\"1610\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjgxx9Rt1voFqBBlL3vqtfg1HxM_9CwvTxAittGfeZP9tzASDhtIHx7M2L3DS2yco8MubnzFWlhb2Qz3T1wJRAzxy_WkhKau0CBO7wQ-78N5ZdvvONr2H8HFV2Pejt3ciMT0Z22wjBEQH5Zz63uDc9q6do_vruRiGpt3bNI9zU-IReURCxT-sFhnolFPp4\/w400-h300\/20231024_175136(0).jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"4000\" height=\"3000\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20231024_180554-2-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"4000\" height=\"3000\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And this morning a little after 7:00, Sarah drove herself to school and an era ended for good.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Melissa and I took one step closer to being empty nesters today: Sarah drove herself to school today in her own car.\u00a0 Melissa didn&#8217;t drop her off and I didn&#8217;t pick her up. Something we&#8217;ve been doing in one way or another for our kids for about 17 years or more.\u00a0 About a month ago [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2161,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155\/revisions\/2161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}