Mostly cloudy skies. High 39F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph..
Cloudy. Low 31F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph.
In winter, there always comes a time when the walls close in and life gets claustrophobic. Since receiving several snow storms recently, I began feeling it. On Sunday, I asked my wife if she wanted to go for a drive and she was amenable to the idea. This was one of the first Sundays that she has been home all day in a very long time. Her Mom’s health had been failing and most of her weekends were occupied with visits to the nursing home. Her Mom passed at the end of the year, and now my wife has been at loose ends.
Our Sunday ride took us out to Londonderry and back in a big loop. One of my favorite routes is up and over Middletown Road that runs from Londonderry to South Londonderry with stunning views of Bromley and Stratton Mountains. The sun was out and the brief views did not disappoint. There was almost no traffic on Middletown Road so I was free to take it slow without impeding others. The ride worked its magic, and we both felt our spirits lift.
The traditional Sunday drive seems to be a dying activity. We often treat the day like any other in our active lives. Unlike Sundays in my youth, the day is like no other weekday in the retail world, and the streets are not empty as they were in, say, 1957. When my family traveled on a Sunday it was for church, a visit to my grandparents in Ludlow or Andover, New Hampshire, or a simple Sunday ride.
I recall one snowy Sunday in 1969 when I was sent out on an errand in the family Chrysler Newport. I decided to take a joy ride detour on my newly minted driver’s license. I was on a main road and got distracted while fiddling around with the vent window and felt a tugging on the right front tire. Suddenly snow was flowing up and over the right fender in a mesmerizing pattern. The car tilted, rose upwards, and did a slow-motion pirouette, landing on its roof in about 15 inches of freshly fallen snow. I was unhurt, lying on the headliner in a light daze.
The car had gone up a snowbank and over a guardrail, landing on its roof maybe 50 feet from the banks of the White River. I got the passenger-side door open and jumped into waist-high snow. I walked down to the Shell Station nearby and called home. My father arranged for a wrecker and the car was pulled out and righted, and damage assessed. There was a missing end-cap on the front fender and a golf-ball-sized dent near the roof pillar, totaling about $36 in damages.
My father turned to me and said: “You’re driving us to your grandparents in Ludlow this afternoon.” There’s nothing like getting back on the horse that threw you, so my Sunday drive now had a purpose.
Most of the family Sunday drives were uneventful, although I recall an incident on Route 5 in Windsor in front of the Davis Brothers Garage where a car backed out onto the road into our path. The other driver’s move was so sudden that a collision was unavoidable. I recall my mother shoving me into the footwell just before impact. The old Dodge sedan was not equipped with seatbelts, so her fast thinking probably saved me some facial contusions or worse. After straightening out something bent in the front end we continued on our way to visit cousins in White River.
All excitement aside, the uneventful Sunday drive is a nice old tradition that bears repeating every so often. In these times of high fuel prices and pollution concerns, a good Sunday drive can seem archaic and a bit irresponsible. However, its therapeutic value is still worthwhile now and then.
The Morning Almanac with Arlo Mudgett is heard Monday through Friday mornings on radio stations Oldies KOOL FM 106.7, 96.3, and 106.5 and over Peak-FM 101.9 and 100.7.
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