Thursday, July 03, 2008

Happy 3rd of July
No big plans this weekend if you don't count a trip to Taste of Minnesota, or a look at fireworks. No golf, though, or traveling.
When gasoline is jacked up to over $4 a gallon, one does tend to think a little more about where they want to go bad enough to spend the money. A family reunion or wedding, perhaps? Maybe a carpool to a sporting event.
Those long, aimless "go for a drive" days of the '50s are gone. Mom was usually the instigator, after working all week at Lockheed. Dad would pack my brother and sister and I into the back of whatever Studebaker or Ford we owned, and we'd go over to Santa Cruz from Los Gatos, or to Santa Rosa from Eureka, or just about anywhere.
I'd sit in the back with a high school history book "liberated" by the sons of my parents' friends. I'd look out the window, then read, look, and read some more. (By chance, I attended the school that used that book later on, and boy did I get good grades in history.)
Jouncing along in the back of the car, though, must have zapped me with the travel bug. Now that I'm about reaching the age I can head out, though, without worrying about the world of work, gasoline is heading for the stratosphere.
But you know something? I'm going to head out anyway. Maybe I won't travel for four or five hours just to spend the afternoon, but the open road still beckons me. And there'll be a golf course along it often enough.