Evening Drives

3 or 4 years old, feeling restless one night after dinner, I asked my dad if he would,"just drive me around the block?" He did more than that as we rode around the Shenango Valley. He loved to drive.
We took many evening drives and I loved to stare out the windows making stories in my mind or listening to the adults talk. I often rode with my friend, Karen and her foster parents, too. We remarked on beautiful homes in the country, but Karen didn't like them because "where would could I ride my bike?" I didn't enjoy riding bikes as much as she. I liked taking in people's homes and imaging stories about them.
In the summer after rains, we came across rainbows.
A big deal was for a dad to pile all the kids he could in the car to drive a few miles up the road to Bobby's Corners and get gas. The windows were down, air blowing all around. Monotony broken.
Most of the time these rides involved an ice cream cone somewhere, maybe Brookfield at the point on 7 and 62, or Twin Kiss in Hickory before the dog leg was fixed on Maple Drive and State Street.
We never drove to Erikson's because that was just a walk down the block. We frequented that often, too.
We loved riding around on a summer evening. Was it the freedom it seemed to give us? The exploration of different places, the remembering of times past? I knew from going down Campground Rd., that Dad snuck away from town to hear the African American campers at the Church of God campground singing. He also told other stories of exploit getting away to the country. Sometimes we just visited people and I ran around in new places. Stories were repeated and imagination sparked. Sometimes, I think we just cooled off with the mechanical breeze and an ice cream cone.