I was driving to the store with Mr. singular yesterday, and I had to make an abrupt stop. Without thinking, I instinctively threw my arm across his chest as I hit the brakes. I know this goes back to driving with my younger siblings in the late 60s/early 70s, before seat belts, but it is hardwired now. Are there other habits us oldsters have that I’m not remembering?
Hell, I do that and I grew up in the age of seat belts. We didn’t always wear them when I was a kid, though, and my parents had grown up before seat belts were in all cars; they always threw their arm out to catch us if they had to stop hard, and I guess I just picked it up by osmosis.
Not any more–I’m one week smoke-free. 
Okay, that was the first thing that came to mind. I’ve also done the flinging of an arm across the passenger when abruptly braking–either my very small dog is there, or my purse, and I want neither flung around.
My boss, age 64, still does the occasional two-martini lunch.
He’s absolutely useless in the afternoons after that.
Lightweight. I once designed a latch release mechanism in an afternoon after three Manhattans, and so far, nothing has failed to leave the pad. There is a rumor that the Titan II development specification was drafted by a bunch of Martin engineers during a debauched poker weekend in San Diego.
Stranger
Me too. Even though I almost never even have a kid in the front seat. Yesterday I very cleverly stopped a book from sliding off the seat onto the floor!
If they weren’t so damned hard to find, all of my dress shirts would be french cuffed. And I occasionally wear bowties.
I thought that was more of a Frank Costanza habit?
My mom regularly almost broke my ribs with that move. I’m way taller than she was.
I don’t know how to quote but Martin? Martin Lockheed or Martian from Mars, Stranger?
Please educate me.
There was a time without seat belts??
The Glenn L. Martin Company (which, through a progressively unsavory and series of mergers and acquisitions became Martin Marietta and now Lockheed Martin) was the prime contractor for the development and acquisition of the LGM-25C Titan II, which subsequently went on to become one of the most successful launch vehicles in the world and developed into the family of premier heavy launch vehicles for the USAF.
Stranger
Oh, yeah. When you watch old movies and nobody in the car is wearing a seat belt, it’s not that they just weren’t wearing them…a lot of the time they just weren’t there to be worn. New cars didn’t have to have seat belts until sometime in the 60’s, and I believe then the only requirement was that you have lap belts in the front–shoulder harnesses and rear seat belts weren’t required until the late 60’s or 70’s. Rear seat 3-point belts are a much more recent development; I don’t think I rode in a car with anything but lap belts in the back until I was in high school or so, and I’m only 35.