Gray Matters by Stuart Carlson and Jerry Resler for October 30, 2023

It was quality time.

My memories of family car rides from that time usually included me being nauseated because my parents were also smokers.

Remember smelling like an ashtray?

Pointless? Most Sundays in the 1950’s we’d go for a drive after church. Gas was cheap and there wasn’t much on tv. We’d follow the two-lane roller coaster roads in Missouri and see a lot of small farms and a variety of livestock. I still go, but now I ride my motorcycle.

That’s where the term “Sunday driver” (slow driving, looking at scenery ) originated.

I remember the days when my parents drove us kids to the lake in our Chevy Impalla.

Many of the roads we fallowed on our Sunday drives are now class 4 roads passable mostly by Jeeps and other 4X4s.

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Dad smoked in the front. The smoke made me carsick and throw up in the back. Dramamine tastes awful.

Not only Sunday trips in the ’50’s.As teens in the ’60’s there was cruising the drive-in restaurants, and what we dubbed,“Get Lost Campaigns”Ride in the country until our gas was 1/2 gone, then figure out which way to head home.(We’d pack a lunch for that…..Yep gas was cheap.

My dad tortured us like that. I still take the most direct fastest route to get where I’m going. My car died over a year ago, and I only rent one once every 6 months. It was a 1999, bought in 2008 with 72K miles on it, died in 2022 with 117k miles on it.

My Dad would say let’s go for a drive when he meant let’s go to High’s and get an ice cream cone.

It got us out of a small cramped trailer that didn’t have any air conditioning. Back then no one had AC.