Sunday rides in the country bring back lots of memories
April 23, 2008
By Judy Halone
Judy Halone, Columnist
When I was growing up in the 60s, I remember hearing my dad announce on Sunday afternoons, “Let’s go for a ride in the country.”
This happened after we came home from church and ate a wonderful meal Mom had prepared. This meal, by the way, was always referred to as Sunday dinner, not lunch. I’ll bet there are a few of you who called it that, too.
I still call it that because it seems to slow our hectic pace down a bit and sets one afternoon apart from all the others.
Mom, Dad, my older sister, Jan and I hopped into our yellow 1965 Plymouth Satellite and settled in for a long drive. Dad started out with a gas tank filled the day before because back in the 60s, gas stations - or any business, for that matter - were closed on Sundays.
“Two bits worth of Ethyl,” he’d say to Hi Chaffy, the gas station attendant on 39th and Main. During our Sunday drives, I don’t know how many miles he drove; I was usually too short to see out the windows all the way. But I do remember taking country back roads from our home in Vancouver, Wash. to the small paper mill town of Camas. It probably took us about 45 minutes or so to get there. Today, our freeways could shorten that time to about 12 minutes.
We passed grassy fields that made me plug my nose when we came across cud-chewing, lazy cows. We drove by old farms where kids played tag in lawns dotted with yellow dandelions. Now that I’m older, I’m almost certain I passed by my future husband’s childhood home dozens of times.
I knew we had arrived when Dad slowly pulled into the old Dairy Queen.
“We’ll take four Buster Bars,” he told the waitress.
We each unwrapped our Buster Bars and slowly licked its sides while trying to keep the chocolate shell from dripping down our hands. Getting to the bottom of the bar, which had a layer of chocolate syrup and peanuts, was the proverbial icing on the cake. Boy, life didn’t get much better than that.
Tell-tale signs of chocolate remained on our mouths while we sang songs. Mom tried to teach me, “Mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy. A kid’ll eat ivy, too, wouldn’t ewe?” It took me several Sunday drives and miles to figure that one out.
Another Sunday ride in the country left me with lyrics of a song I haven’t heard in a long time; it went something like, “Try to remember, the kind of September, when life was slow, and oh, so mellow.” I can still hear my mom’s and sister’s voices harmonizing and looking out the back window at tall
grass waving in September’s breeze.
Today, our gas prices limit my driving. But one of these weekends, I think I’m going to ask the family to hop in the car. I’ll say, “Let’s go for a ride in the country.”
I’ll know we’ve arrived when we wipe the chocolate from our mouths.
Judy Halone is a member of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Contact her at judy@judyhalone.com. Copyright 2008 by Judy Halone.
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