Are you ready for a road trip?

The past is a place of reference, not a place of residence, but oh, what a ride!
                   - Roy T. Bennett

Let’s Go for a Drive

I can still remember the smell of our new car.  

It was a Friday afternoon when our dad drove home with a shiny new 1956 Two-Tone Green Oldsmobile Holiday.  Long and sleek.  Green and white leather seats. Tapered fins.  Standard white-wall tires.  

We were excited, but dinnertime was dinnertime, firm and punctual.  And Saturdays were workdays.  It was a long wait until Sunday.

But first, our Sunday routine: 10:00 Mass, dinner of homemade spaghetti and meatballs, salad greens from the garden, topped off with Mom’s sponge cake. 

After the dishes were washed and put away, and changing from our Sunday best, anticipation was in the air. 

I vividly remember wearing green corduroy slacks and a brown crew neck sweater with a white peter-pan collar folded neatly at the neckline.  

                                    I was ready for the cue:

                                      "Let's go for a drive." 

Sign of the Times

Life felt easy on those Sunday drives with no clear destination in mind.  New communities were popping up like mushrooms, so we often drove to see them.  We heard about a $30,000 house being built.  We had to see that kind of extravagance!  Life motored on and felt as smooth as our well-oiled V-8 Olds.

But life wasn't easy for my parents' generation who knew firsthand sacrifice, loss and sorrow.   They lived through the Great Depression followed by the anguish of World War II.  When our dads, the lucky ones, returned from the war, America went to work, rebuilding a country and strengthening families used to rationed food, the woe of war and hard times.   

There were few jobs for returning soldiers so temporary GI homes were built for struggling families such as ours.  I remember living in a government enclave, very different from my free-spirited years on the family farm.  

But America would not be restrained. New roads and bridges meant America was back to work. My dad found a good paying job and we were soon humming along, just like our country.   

That 1956 two-tone-green Oldsmobile seemed to steer us straight into middle-class America.  

And we did not look back.

Steering Straight Through Hard Times

It's All About the Steering . . .

Fueled by boundless energy, my post war generation grew up with a front row seat to a new future. We were handed the keys to endless possibilities against the beat of a rising new rhythm of life: Rock n' Roll. 
*********

Groundwork is laid. Be ready. Ignite. Stand in the realm of possibilities.  
         -----David Levithan. 

Music as our transport, gives
Wings to the mind, 
Flight to the imagination 
And life to everything. 
                 ― Plato

Sunday Afternoon:  Where did your family go on those Sunday drives?

I remember one Sunday afternoon when my little brother Larry and I drove to Batso State Forest in the pinelands of Southern New Jersy, just to see what we might discover.  

After parking the car, we continued on foot through the thick yet quiet forest and came across centuries old footings, skeletons of what was once an army garrison, constructed during the Revolutionary War.  Now, almost entirely swallowed up by the forest floor, the scars of war found their healing amid new growth and the birth of a nation. 

Life itself is victorious if we have the drive to preserve it.
      g. hill

Preserving the Past 

Road trips carry more than luggage. Our family stories travel with us, tracing the lines between now and then. They need to be told. My little eight year old Marco often pleads, 

                      "GiGi, tell me a story about long ago."

                   And "Long ago" feels like only a moment ago.
                                                             ----g. hill

Tucked in a Moment: Our Recreation Story

Ever wonder how much ignition is generated in one moment of life?  Identity, resolve, steel, determination, belonging, fuel and drive.    When grit, possibilities and resolve settle in, they become solid and immovable, and we remember who we are, recreated, once again.  
                                         ~g. hill

And looking at them, Jesus said to them, 
“With people this is impossible, but with God,
 all things are possible."
       -----Matthew 19:26

Wherever you go, whatever the road conditions or the warning signs, be sure to carry your own sunshine.
Unknown

 We must remember that while we are descendants of the past, 
we are parents of the future, 
                           ~ Herbert Spencer

*********************

For more stories of yesteryear:  Lessons from the Old Cedar Chest, I am From . . , and Time Frames.

Lessons from the Old Cedar Chest

I Am From . . .

A Groundwork of Possibilities

Time Frames

See also: https://faithit.com/on-a-wing-and-a-prayer-true-story/