Because we didn’t own a car when I was a boy, I was always thrilled to ride in one. The speed of modern transport has never lost its magic for me, and this perpetual appreciation stems from remembering how it feels to walk to or from home when hot and tired while watching cars purr past with their air conditioning and comfortable bench seats. I used to play a mental game anytime I rode in a car. I would imagine I had a long, long sword, sharper than the stropped razor’s in R.V.’s barber shop, longer than a vaulter’s pole, extending out the passenger side window. And as we would…