The Sunday drive was something my family did every weekend. As regular as brushing my teeth or going to school, the Sunday drive was an integral part of my childhood. On Saturday, my father and I got ready for the Sunday drive. He would wash the car and then he and I would drive down to the gas station to fill up the tank. I can remember staring out the window at the sign with the gas price of 39.9 cents per gallon. The attendant would amble over to the car and call my father by name. My dad would get out and talk to the man as he went about the car cleaning the windows. The man would always make funny faces when he got to my window and pretend to wash my face. My father would pay the attendant, with cash of course, thank him, shake his hand, and then we would be off on our other errands.

           The next stop would be at the corner newsstand. Out in front, there was a huge metal kettle and old Joe O’Delli would be roasting his peanuts on these early Saturday evenings. The air would be filled with the enticing aroma that made my stomach rumble. My father would stop to buy a brown paper sack full of these wonderful, warm fragrant peanuts. It would be my job to hold them on the way home.

            The newsboys would be putting their papers together and standing on the street corners as the cars drove by. My father would hand me a quarter as we slowly approached the corner, and I would hold the money out and the snatch the paper in. Our last stop was at the beer distributors. Although I never once saw my father drink a drop of beer, we would stop at the distributors to buy “pop.” My father would open the trunk and take out the wooden crate filled with the returnable glass quart bottles. He would come back to the car carrying a full case of soda with flavors like grape, cherry, orange, root beer, and his favorite cream soda. We would head home to watch one of our three channels on our black and white television while cracking open the warm peanuts and washing them down with a glass of soda. We couldn’t stay up too late, though, because tomorrow was a big day.