The quick transformation from buggies to Buicks and long walks to Learjets astonishes me.
The cavemen traveled by foot and with that realization comes images of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble with Wilma and Betty in their cartoon cars.
Some believe the future will have us in odd contraptions similar to the space ships from another of my favorite childhood cartoons, “The Jetsons.”
I know we have come far from the days when the first indigenous Americans rode horses through their ancestral lands, and it took a lot longer to get to town in the era when horse-drawn carriages bumped along dirt roads.
My mama loved to tell stories of her daddy hitching the old wooden wagon to two of the horses from his pasture and her mama spreading blankets out for rides through the country where she grew up, maybe to church services on Sunday morning, prayer meeting on Wednesday night, or for a bit of shopping in town.
Tales of picnic baskets as far as the eye could see and her brothers and sisters singing gospel hymns until sundown made her smile.
My earliest memory of getting from A to Z was in Daddy’s brand new blue and white striped pickup truck, standing up on the blue vinyl seats beside Mama while we listened to the roar of the engine compete with the music coming from the 8-track as Daddy pushed in one of his country kings after the other — Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson.
Sometimes Mama let me sit in her lap, roll down the window and hold my head as far out as she deemed safe, in other words never very far.
Those were the best of times. I grew up and into the seats of our family’s station wagon.
My brother Tony and I loved that car because we got to ride on the tops of big bags of chicken feed as Daddy drove home from town. It was the best seat a kid could get, or so I thought.
We went through all kinds of automobiles from Mama’s dark blue Oldsmobile Toronado to her baby blue Chrysler New Yorker. Both had plush seats and enough memories to last this old boy a lifetime, from riding shotgun in kindergarten carpools to driving to my senior prom.
My favorite way to get around was just Mama and me with the wind blowing her hair as we sang to the tops of our lungs: “I found my thrill on Blueberry Hill,” her driving fast over the winding country roads of my youth.
Who knows? We went from horse and buggy to automobile in just one generation. Maybe a conveyance like George Jetson’s will be here to pick us up before we know it.
David Creel is a Mississippi resident and a syndicated columnist. You may reach him at beautifulwithdavid@gmail.com.