4 Wheeled Freedom

 Here's the thing...

It's been a while. Not just since the last time I've written something here, but for so many things. In the last 14 months, life has changed dramatically for all of us. If you're one of us commuter types, you're undoubtedly still enjoying the clear roadways the pandemic has created.

Depending on when you checked the statistics, there were up to 71% of full time-workers working from home at one point. And that's not even mentioning the sad statistics tied to unemployment. Once "Shelter-in-place" and "Essential Worker" became an everyday part of our lexicon, cars just began to sit. What's more, many multi-car families sold off second and third cars, meaning that once the world started spinning a bit, they didn't even have the option to start taking up lane-space the way they once had.

Cars that had started up every day sat until batteries died. People that had traditionally miled out their leases turned in woefully under-driven automobiles. A country built on the open road and the freedom of driving were stuck inside for fear of invasion from an all consuming, unseeable threat. Even if you went out for a drive, where would you go? Nowhere was open.

But maybe that's the beauty of cars. You don't always need a destination. No matter how bad things got, you could still get lost on an old back road, or just drive around the block. We even started doing "car parades", multi-party drive-by's to celebrate life's milestones while still observing social distancing regulations. There's an old joke: you can live in your car, but you can't drive your house. Usually it applies to taking on a big car payment, and skipping rent or mortgage to make it. But what if we look at it another way. Cars are our home away from home.

Cars make us feel safe, they help us escape, they connect us all while still keeping us at least 6 feet away from each other. I know non-gearheads that were excited to get back in their cars and go back to work once life started moving again. Let alone those who love their cars and treat them like family. And maybe the truth is that cars connect us more than we'll ever know.

And that, that's the thing.