March 29, 2024

Just out for a ride

Editor's Note: This column originally published Nov. 11, 2016

When I was a kid, we’d go for rides.

My parents would load my brother, sister and me in the car and off we’d go... with no particular destination in mind. Sometimes on Sunday afternoons. Sometimes on Saturday evenings. To be honest, it didn’t seem an uncommon activity, no matter when we went.

Does anyone even do this anymore?

At times we’d end up in the county, looking at acres and acres of nothing — well, that’s what us kids thought. But mom and dad would be in the front seat conversing about people from their past having lived where only the skeletal remains of a home now stood.

It was even better if we’d take the truck though, with the kids riding in the back. Remember doing that? Deciding which “seat” over the wheel well would be yours and leaning over the side. I think my brother generally was on one side and my sister and I shared the other. (I can’t imagine my son ever allowing his son to ride in the back of a truck!)

Occasionally we’d find ourselves driving through a cemetery, pausing to look at the graves of long-gone relatives. As strange as it seems, I always kind of enjoyed that ... listening to the stories of people I can’t put a face to, but had often heard the tales of fragments of their lives.

Best of all, however, were the evening rides. Those same houses we’d see day in and day out as we’d pass by on the way to school or while riding our bicycles, had a different aura once the street lights came on. On nice evenings we’d meander through neighborhoods with the windows down on the car and hear they cicadas buzzing, and wave at people we knew as they sat on their front porches, relaxing at the day’s conclusion.

But truth be known, I always enjoyed the brief glimpses into people’s homes when their lights would be on inside yet they hadn’t closed their curtains. Oh yeah, I’m one of those. It actually sounds a bit creepy as I write it! But seriously, haven’t you done the same thing?

In fact, to this day, when I rearrange my furniture or purchase a new lamp, I always walk to the road in front of my house when the sun sets, just to see how it looks to passersby.

After all, you know what they say — all’s fair in love, war and an evening drive.

Contact Dana King at dking@shawmedia.com