A new day A new experience

Whatever Happened to the Sunday Afternoon Drive?

When I was a kid we used to take Sunday afternoon drives just for entertainment. My Dad would say to the family, "Do you want to drive around a little?" Of course we three kids were all for that. We would not have any special place to go, we just drove around. Sometimes we would drive out into the countryside and just smell the fresh air and see the wild flowers or the farms along the way. Other times we would drive past places where we used to live or past where someone we knew lived. Occasionally we would stop and talk to someone if they happened to be outside where we saw them.

I remember one Sunday afternoon we had driven out into the country and along the way we saw a car that had gotten off the road and had turned over, The people in the car were black people. A couple of them had been injured in the accident. There were several other cars stopped along side of the road near the accident. However, no one was doing anything to help the injured people. It was as if everyone expected the other people to do something but no one was! To this day I can remember how I, even as a child, thought that someone should get the injured people out and help them. There were no cell phones then so we could not call an emergency number to get help. But someone could have gone to the nearest town and summoned an ambulance or the police. Since it has been so long ago and I was not very old, I can't really remember how it all ended. I just know that those poor injured people were at every one's mercy and the mercy was not there. All the prejudice, bigotry and bad feelings towards black people were surely displayed that day. Thank God that has changed for the most part!

Fortunately, we did not run across many accidents like that. Mostly we had very enjoyable rides. Now, however, with gas prices as they are you might have to consider taking out a loan to fill your gas tank and you certainly don't want to use your gas for unnecessary jaunts in the car. I am afraid the Sunday afternoon rides are now lost in the pages of our memory!

posted by kyra lafain @ 3/12/2008 03:21:00 PM