August 27, 2017 Article

No more Sunday drives for the Old Coot.

By Merlin Lessler

A Sunday afternoon Drive! That last century, family ritual, is long gone. In the first place, there is no Sunday, not like the ones I grew up with, when the world slowed down for a day to catch its breath. Most stores were closed; you might find a drug store open, though they offered very little merchandise other than drugs. Here and there a gas station operator was filling tanks, to service people traveling. Mowers, hammers and saws were silent. Even the dogs knew enough not to bark. You could hear the quiet. It was wonderful.  

Mom and Dad hopped in the front seat with the “little one” nestled between them, perched in a canvas car seat, cranking on a fake steering wheel in synch with dad’s turning maneuvers. Siblings, Dick, Jane, and dog Spot, stretched out on a sofa size back seat. The windows were down so Spot could hang his head out the side and catch the exotic scents in the country. Off the clan went, into rural America, for a visit to Aunt Millie’s or just a lazy sightseeing tour with plenty of things to gawk at: farm houses, barns, rows of corn, unmanned produce stands, junk yards, ponds, hay stacks, grazing cows and horses, wandering chickens and oddities that have long since disappeared, like mailboxes perched atop ten-foot poles with, “Place bills in here,” or, “Airmail,” hand lettered on the side.  

No! There are no peaceful Sundays or relaxing Sunday drives anymore, not ones with commerce throttled back to 10% and a world at rest. Nor, is there a quiet rural road where it’s safe to poke along and gawk at the sights. I know; I try to recreate the experience from time to time; all I get is frustration. As soon as I slow down to gawk, someone will come speeding up from behind and ride my bumper. I can see they are yelling at me in my rear-view mirror. I pull over to let them pass at the first opportunity, yet still get a raised fist instead of a thank you wave. In the old days, you only received an uncivil gesture from a riled teenage male, riding a wave of testosterone. Today, it’s just as apt to come from a young mother with two kids strapped in car seats. Equality takes many forms.

I have found a replacement of sorts, a six AM Saturday morning drive by myself (who else would get up that early for such a mundane event except some old coot). It’s a sort of sunrise memorial service for me, to commemorate that long-lost Sunday drive. Most of the time, I find a world at rest and can poke along and contemplate the beauty of the countryside and novelty along country lanes. The only hard part for me, on my environmentally incorrect excursion (driving for the pleasure of it) is to find my way back home after wandering deep into unchartered territory, with the unsettled feeling that I might be driving right into a Stephen King horror story. But, I am starting to learn my way around the rural back roads of southern New York and northern Pennsylvania. It ain’t a Sunday drive, but it’s the next best thing.

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