A typical Sunday for a Boomer child in the mid 50’s went something like this.
“Wake up, get dressed. Eat your breakfast or we’ll be late for church.”
No mention of baths or showers because we did all that on Saturday night. After eggs, bacon, toast and jam, we were off to church. Sunday school first, then church. Sometimes we lucked out and just went to Sunday school and were back home by 11.
Around 12:30, we had “dinner.” Dinner was the mid-day meal. Usually a beef roast or a ham, sometimes fried or stewed chicken. It was a major meal with rolls, gravy, mashed potatoes, homemade cakes and pies – the works. Immediately after “dinner”, Daddy took a short nap. When he awoke, around three, it was time for a Sunday drive.
A Sunday drive is what families once did together. Gas was 25 cents a gallon, cars got good mileage and the novelty of the automobile had not quite worn off. Sometimes we had someplace special to go. Other times we just went for a drive and toured the countryside. If we had company, we always went for a Sunday drive because our relatives from the flat lands of North Carolina were fascinated with the mountains and we had plenty of those in West Virginia. A favored destination for a family Sunday drive was a place called Grandview, a state park outside of Beckley with a scenic overlook of the New River Valley. The views from the top of that mountain were, and still are, amazing. Near the overlook were caves that one could explore – if one had the nerve to poke around in a dark cave – with bats, bears and who knows what else. I stayed in the daylight and let other explore. Then, it was back into our 1955 Pontiac sedan to continue the drive, arriving home in the late afternoon, maybe 5:00 or 5:30. For supper, we had whatever was left over from dinner. We feasted again on the goodies and turned on the radio and listened to Amos and Andy, the Jack Benny Show, Our Miss Brooks and others. Sometimes we watched TV, but the radio shows on Sunday night made for better entertainment.
Around 8:30, it was off to bed with a bath or shower if we had dirtied ourselves during the afternoon.
Few families today take a Sunday drive. There are simply too many other things that get in the way. Life if much busier today, but not appreciably better. Sunday was once a day of rest. Stores were closed and youth activities on a Sunday afternoon, such as Little League or swim meets, were never considered. There was little else to do but family bonding, and that’s not an entirely bad thing.