Long ago, people just got in their cars for a Sunday drive. Usually out on a country road on a sunny day. Sometimes people stopped somewhere for a picnic. Other times they just drove aimlessly and enjoyed the time outside.
I barely can remember this from childhood. It was always my older relatives that still did it in the late 60’s. Always right after church services and on pretty days.
Anyone else remember this bygone tradition? 
You recall what you did?
In the summer, we went down to my grandparents’ place on the river on Sundays. In the winter, we mostly hung around at home. Going for a drive wasn’t typically entertainment for us, except at Christmas time to look at lights.
FWIW, I was born in 1954.
Hmm…I remember taking drives with the family, but not necessarily after church.
My dad was a curious sort, and he would love to drive to things he had read about - parks, carnivals (for us kids) and some new construction sites (bridges, buildings, highways, etc.) - but I do recall when we got our first car with air conditioning (big deal back then) we would take drives on hot summer nights just to cool off in the car!
Those drives usually started or ended with some milk shakes and a tenderloin sandwich at some local drive in restaurant and then just a drive around town. Ah yes…roll down the window and have that tray set there with all the goodies!
We were lucky in having three state parks within about 15 miles of our house, so there were plenty of drives to them for picnics or hiking or just driving through to see the leaves turning color in the fall. We also had a few drive in movie theaters back then, so there were the occasional visits there on a hot summer night…and we kids would sit out on the bumper of the car to watch the films.
I even recall some outdoor beer gardens…my parents would take us there and they had a special area for kids (away from the beer garden) that was a huge playground and all the other kids would be playing there as well while the adults had beer and pizza outside nearby.
We called them “rides”.
It wasn’t an after-church thing. (Black church services last eleventy-billion hours. All you want to do afterwards is eat and take a long-ass nap.)
But on Saturday evening in the warm weather seasons, we’d pile into the family car and go for a ride. Daddy would take us all around town. Bad parts of town, prostitutes and crackheads and all, all the way to the good parts of town–so we could gawk at the fancy houses. On the way home, we’d stop by Zesto’s for dipped ice cream cones.
I loved it when my parents asked “Who wants to go for a ride?” I don’t think I ever said “no”. The aimlessness of it appealed to me the most. There were so many times when I just wanted Daddy to keep driving down Peachtree Rd. to see if it went on forever.
My parents still go for rides. My mother will call me on her cellphone and tell me the two of them are just riding around. It surprises me that they still do this given the price of gas, but I’m glad they still keep up the tradition.
Absolutely yes. Back when gas was .20 per gallon. In 1973, gas jumped up to .55 and we didn’t think we would survive.
Going for a drive was always a fun thing to do. No responsibilities. And no smartphone, iPad, iPod, or dvd player. Just staring out the window and watching the scenery go be. Blissful…
yep I remember it well. I still do it on occasion on random days.
I especially remember watching the big stores being built one snapshot a week, like a time lapse.
First there was an empty field. The one day there was a coming soon sign. Eventually the trucks and tractors showed up. Then there was a big dirt field. The a little hole that got bigger etc. until there was a giant store with parking lot and trees.
Not quite sure why it was so fascinating, but it was to me.
In the '70s my family would go on drives through the nearby Gifford-Pinchot National Forest (in Washington state). The driving part always bored the living crap out of me, because it was just mile after mile of endless expanses of Douglas firs and cedars. My dad would always get mad because I’d be sitting in the back seat reading a book instead of enjoying the scenery (tree after identical tree).
I did, however, enjoy the parts where we’d stop and get out of the damned car. Then I could explore and look at things up close.
The practice of just going for a drive (as commemorated by the Kinks song Drivin’) was a bit before my time, though I do remember my family driving around to look at the Christmas lights in December.
Never heard of it.
Oh my yes. Every Sunday, my elderly grandfather was required to drive my grandmother and great aunt to Sunday dinner at the local restaurant after church and then drive around the countryside for a couple of hours looking at everyone’s houses or fields.
He had a huge black 1975-ish Buick Electra and, as he was not a very tall man, it was the stereotypical picture the old man driving slow, barely seeing over the dashboard while the old ladies sat in back and commented on everything. (“Well, my heavens, Vern finally painted his barn” or “Fred finally got his soybeans in. Don’t they look good?”) After a couple of hours of driving they would park in front of the courthouse and then watch to see who drove by, still commenting on everyone and everything they saw.
My sister and I were dragged along several times and were bored beyond belief. Now I kind of would like to have back some of that time with them.
(Queue up nostalgic sigh)
Moved from Cafe Society to MPSIMS.
My family used to do this. Usually we went to the cemetery where some of our relatives were buried, or to a lightly-used park in a rural area for a modest picnic. Sometimes we went to the airport to watch the planes take off and land (yes, that was a treat!).
After Mass we almost always went home and Dad cooked a big breakfast. Catholics are required to fast before taking Communion, so everyone was hungry. After breakfast we might go for a ride.
Funny though, this weekend my stepfather and I drove up to Indiana to my niece’s college graduation. A good bit of it was through state highways, and we remarked on the houses and farms, the crops (boy, that winter wheat is sure looking good!), the livestock (Indiana has far less livestock then Kentucky or Tennessee - the farms are row crops). It wasn’t boring at all.
StG
Just last week me and Mom talked about this. For us it wasn’t after church, it was whenever we wanted to go to the beach. I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, so rather than always taking Topanga Canyon Road or Kanan Road to Zuma beach, she would take a different way, stopping with me and my sister to explore a new place and eat at different restaurants. Often times my sister and I got bored, and agitated Mom with ‘are we there yet’ or arguing with each other.
When I was a teenager we used to just drive. No destination other than out of the house. Pick up your buddies and go. Good times.
Sundays after the midday meal was the time to take a ride. Sometimes we would wind up at family friends’ house somewhere along the way, but a lot of the time, it was just driving around the Indiana countryside and through small towns.
If there was an interesting rock shop or antique store open, we’d stop for awhile. Somewhere during the ride, we would also stop for ice cream, root beer (in the summer when the B&K, A&W or Dog N suds was open) or, in cooler weather, a small cafe for pie and coffee.
I still go for a ride with my dad when I go up to visit sometimes. 
Sometimes we would pull up on 120th st and park right next to the airport. Maybe 100 cars would be there watching the airplanes land.
When I was raising my family we would drive through the forests and deserts and explore for creatures and plants, we used to call it lizard hunting.
Yes, I remember this, but not fondly. I get motion sick, and while I rarely actually puke, I will get miserable fairly quickly. This used to piss my mother off, as she loved going for rides, and she didn’t want to leave me home by myself. Never mind that I was considered old enough to babysit my sibs, and other parents’ kids. If I was left home, I might do something like read or otherwise enjoy myself.
Looking back, I probably should have just not tried to avoid throwing up. I’m sure that if I had tossed my cookies on a more frequent basis, my parents might have been convinced to leave me home.
Heh, yes that was me. The only time I could get him off my back about that was when I pointed out that when I was reading I wasn’t fighting with my kid brother who shared the back seat.
Our sunday drives were out in the Idaho farm country, scenic enough in its way, but not terribly exciting. Mother liked to look at houses…Dad had built her a very nice ranch-style house ca 1960, and she always wanted to know who all was building a nicer house than hers. Dad didn’t care about houses, but he loved to get a peek at which of his neighbors were violating the sabbath by having a tractor in the field (we were fundamentalists who took the “remember the sabbath day to keep it holy” commandment very seriously). Kid bro & I were mostly bored and irritable. We’d get yelled at for fighting, so usually just stuck our tongues out or jabbed one another in the ribs or something.
Yep, we did it often. Drove to a lot of historic battlefields or forts and just driving around out in the country. Looking back on it now I suspect my dad was scouting places to go fishing.
That’s funny, because an even more fundamentalistic person would admonish your father for driving on the Sabbath.
And heaven forbid the car broke down while ya’ll were on the road. I guess ya’ll would have just stayed stranded until Monday came. 