Let’s set the scene for you: Nice, sunny day in late May, just a couple of puffy clouds in the sky. It’s late spring in Colorado Springs, the air is sweet, the mountains are gorgeous, and Dad is backing the ’84 Firebird into the driveway, stopping while the car is still on the incline. The bucket comes out, the hose is on and everybody grabbed a sponge to scrub the car clean. And, usually, at some point everything devolved into a water fight, the kids with Super Soakers, Dad with the bucket, Mom with the hose. Once the war was over, towels were broken out for both the car and the victims of yet another senseless battle involving dihydrogen monoxide as a weapon. Usually, by the time the Firebird was sparkling, that early evening thunderstorm was rolling over the Rockies, the grill was cooking up burgers and hot dogs and the kids were burning off the last of their energy before getting a bath, catching a TV show and going to bed. Life in 1988 ruled.
Life in 2020, by comparison, seems like a Twilight Zone scene by comparison. The Firebird is too old and too irresponsible of a car. You don’t back the car to the house, it’s pushing exhaust towards the living space and where is your wheel chock? Washing your car in your driveway? You’re wasting water, you heathen! Don’t throw water at the kids, that’ll traumatize them! And so on and so forth until you either bite the bullet and go spend fifteen bucks at the local Soap My Ride…or you take the pressure washer to your local upright citizen until their virtue signaling ass retreats from your driveway.
I don’t have kids, so I have no real answer for this, but you might and you probably do: what car-related things can you still do with the whole family that won’t get you in hot water? Look at Brian’s home projects with the boys…that’s the kind of thing we’re talking about. Do you build stuff together? Do you wash the car together? Do they hang around while you change the oil or fetch wrenches? In this day and age I’m really curious as to what people still do. You used to see a family washing their car any weekend day that was pretty. I haven’t seen that in…lord, years?
I have no kids. The dogs follow me out to the shop and hang around while I’m wrenchin’. Afterwards, the wife and I throw them in the truck and take them all for ice cream. Family life, 2020.
Well for one I would move away from whatever place is described in the article, I assume California?
Colorado Springs he said. Here in CA times have changed and few maintain their cars themselves or wash them in the driveway anymore, that may not even be allowed during drought conditions. Cars and Coffee wherever it may be isn’t interesting enough for kids to get off their phones for. But you can get a buggy or old 4×4 and hit the desert where the Dads can enjoy their machinery and have a beer, Moms can hunt flowers or whatever, and kids ride along, play in the rocks and sand, maybe have their own bikes or quads. Meal times are often a potluck w/ groups. Thousands of families are out there every weekend during the season, we went from a purely street-machine household once to a street-machine/4×4 split because of this fun.
Come to Sears Point some race weekend if we are ever released from lockdown. Hundreds of RVs on multiple campgrounds, even on the infield, many with kids. The lots have their own subcultures. As Loren said above, it’s not so much isolated families as it is groups of like-minded families. You could also try Oceano Dunes if our governor ever opens up the state parks again — same scenario except the envirobullies are trying to shut it down.
This guy is doing somthing right. He’s keeping the hobby alive for the next generation. As I get older I find that to be more and more important.
The kids help me wash the cars and truck in our driveway. They come check on what I’m doing when I’m wrenching on it out there. There are three drag strips near where we live and the family will come see me run. And this is all in Southern California. Only point I’m making is things aren’t all that bad. Or I’m just lucky. Or both.