We're geezers..so we remember the first fuel crisis in the early 1970s. That was the time when the price of fuel jumped from 33.9 cents a gallon to over a dollar a gallon. We thought the world as we knew it was coming to an end. (Little did we know then, that we would relish those buck-a-gallon days.)
Until that fateful fuel crisis, going on a Sunday drive was "tradition," almost mandatory in some circles of society. It was something that my family did every Sunday, rain or shine. I loved it. However, during and after that crisis, going on a Sunday drive was tantamount to being unpatriotic and something you would not think of doing as we were saving fuel for the folks who really needed it for more important reasons, like delivering food. Since then, fuel costs are more than 4x what they were then. Sadly, we've gotten used to the price, and the Sunday drive is making a comeback.
Given that, we went on a Sunday drive today. We wound our way to the Old Spanish Trail and hooked a 270 degree left turn and headed for Gunlock in nowhere UT. We thought we were off the beaten track until we saw dozens of ATVs plying the dirt paths off the "main road." I drove our hybrid pickup on the main road, a narrow, wiggly, strip of pavement that went up and down hills, over narrow bridges and made hairpin turns. It was fun to drive. We enjoyed the red rocks, the aa lava fields, the tiny creeks, the Joshua trees, the gnarled cottonwoods along the way. We were in the country. The sky was a beautiful blue with puffy clouds. It does not get better. We had no idea where we were going, we just followed the road and loved it. We passed a couple of communities and then we came to a red stop sign. We must have hit civilization. I saw a sign that said "Veyo Pies." Karen had told me that Veyo was famous for pies, but I had no idea that we were going anywhere near Veyo. We stopped at the tiny corner pie bakery and bought a pie. We talked to the man behind the counter and were interested to find out that they had already sold 270 pies today! He said, some days they sell 600 pies a day! He told us about the tiny kitchen/bakery and who worked in it. We were impressed. As we were walking back to the truck, the man came out of the pie store and asked us our name and we told him. He said he was John and he owned the bakery. Then he said "here's a chicken pot pie for dinner!" We thanked him and went on our way with great big smiles on our face. What a treat. We were immediately back in pre-geezer America --you know the place where we grew up--and it was more than wonderful. A Sunday drive back in time.
Geezers it's not possible to go back in time. But, if you are lucky, sometimes you can take a Sunday drive, buy a pie, and find old-fashioned neighborliness and friendliness along the way. We did that today in the village of Veyo. All is good. Remember, we're in this together.
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