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Over the Back Fence By HANK HENRY Talking to ourselves has value Everyone does it at one time or another: talks to themselves. The place to do it is in the privacy of your car. If someone should ask, you can always claim that you were singing along with the car radio. Tradition says that older people are more prone than younger ones to talk to themselves, but I rather doubt that. I think people of all ages talk to themselves at least some of the time. Little kids have great imaginations. They can make up stories and act them out. I remember walking down a sidewalk when I was about 5 or 6, daydreaming about being a hero such as the one in a cowboy movie I had seen. I was so into my daydream that I was holding my forefinger as if it were a gun and shouting, "Take that," and "pow pow!" Somebody came by and asked, "Whatever are you doing?" I sneaked away, thoroughly deflated. It's odd that such a feeling can still be with you after 70 years. Then there are the times when you talk to yourself about what you should have said, as you re-examine a situation in which you didn't acquit yourself very well. I had that happen a few weeks ago in the Medford post office. There is a stamp-dispensing machine in the lobby that spits out various booklets of stamps plus single stamps which can be rolled up and put in one of those plastic dispensers. Nora and I like to use an old-fashioned roll of stamps that have to be licked. The machine will deliver up to 10 stamps at a time. They roll out of the machine as a string of stamps, or they are supposed to do that. I put in a $20 bill and began to punch buttons. The machine responded by delivering one stamp instead of the 10 I had programmed. This led to a problem. A sign on the machine said that change would be given in one-dollar coins. I didn't want to lug around a bunch of coins. I finally got the machine to work part of the time, but it probably took 10 minutes or so to use up the $20 I had deposited. As I was finishing up, a rough, sarcastic voice came from behind me. It said something like, "It must be nice to be retired so you can hold up people for hours." I turned my head and saw behind me a bleary-eyed man in his 50s who looked agitated. Luckily, the machine started to work properly and I was able to take my stamps and my change and get out of there. As I turned, I said, "Have a wonderful day." I tried not to sound too sarcastic. Then I got to the car and settled down in the driver's seat. I found myself going into the "I should have said to him" mode. Since the windows were up, I spoke the sharp replies aloud, and anyone looking in would have known that I was making a speech, even though I didn't make gestures. Here I was, a man 77 years of age, being accused of holding other people away from the stamps they needed. If that reads as if I was thinking in a very juvenile manner, you are right. However, I think there is a little of the juvenile in most of us. We usually keep the trait well hidden, but out it comes when we have been attacked or made to appear foolish. One such reaction now has a name: "Road Rage." Traffic cops and psychologists both say the incidence of people completely losing their cool in traffic is rising. Such spontaneous actions by otherwise sane people can lead to tailgating, making threatening gestures and even actions causing wrecks. Most of the time road rage happens to men. It used to be that when someone attempted to cut in front of me, I would automatically react by speeding up. I'm not too old to let an incident trigger a flash response. Helping me to avoid that reaction is one of a million reasons why I need Nora so much. When my flash point is reached, she simply puts her hand on my shoulder and I know that the gesture means, "Don't lose your cool." That's good advice for anyone prone to instantaneous fury. (Hank Henry is a retired Jackson County commissioner and a former radio and television announcer. Call him at 772-9055.) Prime Times front page Mail Tribune front page Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA