My family wasn't much for recreation. My father worked six days a week, from early morning until early evening. We did go for a long car ride on Sundays. Back then gasoline was cheap, and having no destination wasn't thought of as wasteful. Children were more content to sit in the back seat and look out the window, now they want a video screen in the vehicle.
Even children's play then involved more imagination and interaction. Howdy Doody was just a puppet on strings,who spend most of his time talking to an adult, Buffalo Bob, can you imagine?
Sitting in that back seat in the mid fifties, I might well had
my "coonskin" hat with me. Fess Parker was a genuine American hero. It mattered little if he played both Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, both were king of the wild frontier. The ride probably lasted for two hours and then we would go to a restaurant to eat dinner. Compared to now, there were very few restaurants.
My mother would cook all the other meals that week, and we probably ate out more than most. Supermarkets were the new rage in food shopping, but the butcher, baker and candle stick maker were still going strong. If my father headed west or south, chances are we ended up at Shankweiler's Hotel, famous for chicken and waffles. They were at the intersection of Old 22 and Route 100. The building still exists and currently is a bank. The family also owned another hotel on Route 309, which operated an adjoining Drive-In movie.
If my father headed north or east, we would end up at Walp's, which was on the corner of Union Blvd. and Airport Road. Walp's was a much more urban place. While Shankweiler's was an old country inn, Walp's was built as a modern restaurant. I enjoyed those rides, they were a learning experience.
reprinted from March of 2010
I've enjoyed this post and the previous one, both about driving around for enjoyment. As you've noted, this seems to be going (or has gone) by the wayside in recent years.
ReplyDeleteBut while your previous post mentioned the fascination with our phones, it's increasingly obvious (or should be) that it's our own government that's taking away our freedom to travel as we would like to.
Gas prices remain higher than they should be, as a result of a government decision not to tap into vast reserves of domestic fossil fuels. And just today, our leaders in Washington are proposing unachievable emissions standards that are designed to target and eliminate gas-powered automobiles.
But are there comparable alternatives available? Not really. Electric vehicles cost far more than those that are gas-powered, and generally have shorter ranges. Meanwhile, real wages (after factoring in inflation) are going down. So even if you wanted a less-powerful, shorter-range vehicle, most people can't afford what they're going to allow you to drive.
Please let that last sentence sink in for a moment, as if government bureaucrats should ever have the power to tell free people in America what they should be allowed to drive. But I digress.
Worse of all, even if everyone could afford the conversion to electric cars, we don't have the ability to generate enough electricity; or an electrical grid capable of distributing it. But we seem to be hell-bent on putting all our eggs into one basket. Factor in that a majority of the electric car batteries and other "green" power components (like solar panels) come from an unfriendly nation (China), and you have the makings of a national disaster.
Why is this being done by our leaders? Supposedly they are "saving" our planet. But we're a good 25 years past the time we were told that we'd be under water and more populous, developing nations (like China and India) aren't playing by the same rules. No matter what the reason, it should be obvious that we're being played.
So while I hate to have added politics into the nostalgia of things like the Sunday Drive and driving through Dorney Park, we (and especially our young people) need to realize that we're slowly losing our freedoms at the hands of politicians. Unless we reverse the course we're on, our kids won't remember driving for the fun of it, whether that's locally or along national landmarks like Route 66. And they certainly won’t remember when people in America were truly free.
Great post, for sure!!! I ate at both the Shankweiler's in years past and enjoyed the meals immensely... good Pa Dutch cooking, same as at Walp's. I had no idea the Fogelsville location had an adjoining drive in unless you're referencing the Kuhnsville drive in. Please clarify.
ReplyDeleteanon@7:52: correction made, thank you.
ReplyDelete