In Defense of the Sunday Drive

When I was just 16 years-old, (just weeks ago by my recollection),  I simply got into the car and drove.  I had no real destination.  There was no devotion to my navigation, and rarely was a chart consulted for guidance.  It seems strange to think of the risk I took in doing that, heading out alone with only the cash in my Velcro-secured wallet.  I had no mobile phone and no GPS, not even a credit card.  I didn’t even have my mother along.  It was simply me, the car, and the road.  It was wonderful.  I got in, put the windows down, turned the key, and was off.  I was looking for nothing more than to discover a bit more of this world than I had known when I left the house.  Sometimes I was even successful.

The road that I chose inevitably led to another one and sometimes two.  I was forced to make a choice:  which direction would I take?  More often than not, it was the one that led further from home.  I wasn’t trying to escape home as much as I was striving to embrace freedom.  For the first time in my life I could make my own decisions and get myself into some REAL trouble, if I so chose  (which I rarely did).

It used to be a weekly occurrence for many in America to pile into the family Buick (a brown ’73 LeSabre in our case) after Sunday lunch and go for a drive.   The kids were all stuffed in the back seat and forced to look out the window to observe the world.  There were no DVD players or other electronic devices to keep their minds occupied—that was up to the kids’ imaginations and the parents’ route.  This drive allowed the family to get out from the city and the suburbs to see some scenery,  to witness another style of life, or at least other brands of cars.  Read more