illiam Fanning—Bill—stands at a shrunken five feet eleven inches. He claims he used to be taller, but the “dryer of life took over and shrunk him.”
He is a World War II veteran with a head full of silky white hair, a mouth full of brilliantly white false teeth, and a modern sense of style. At eighty-nine years of age his sight is nearly diminished and he’s almost completely blind in one eye from a cataract and scarring from an ulcer.

There are only three important things in Bill’s life these days, his wife, his daughters and grandchildren, and being able to be the proud, self-sufficient man he’s always been. For him, this means having the freedom to drive.

So, when the department of Motor Vehicles sent him a letter saying they needed to test him before renewing his license, Bill decided that something needed to be done for the betterment of his sight. He needed to surrender to his biggest fears—surgery and doctors.

He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a place of high traffic that makes him feel as though he is a science lab rat stuck in a maze. He is a man of many virtues who strongly believes that driving is his right, not a given privilege.

I met Bill through his daughter Debbie, who has been a family friend for years. She too knows that driving is important to Bill, and while she knows that he shouldn’t drive, she realizes he must in order to be happy. His other daughters disagree.

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