On a typical afternoon back home, as mom cooks diligently in the kitchen, I suddenly hear an outburst. "Oh, no! I forgot to get milk at the store."" She had gone to the store just hours beforehand, planning dinner for the family. It seems like such a great inconvenience to have to drive three miles back to the store for one insignificant yet imperative item. It takes all of twenty minutes to drive to the store and back; in the minds of people today, that is a hefty portion of our extremely fast-paced days. .
Just fifty years ago, however, a three-mile walk to the grocery store was a short jaunt that lasted almost an hour each way. I remember talking to my grandmother about when she was a little girl growing up in the forties. She told me that a three-mile walk to and from the store was a common occurrence after school and before dinner. "Many people had cars back then,"" she explained, "but your great grandfather had to take our only car to work every morning and wouldn't return until late in the evening. We didn't have cellular phones back then, so we couldn't ask him to pick up a few things at the store on his way home. So I had to walk to the store, just two miles down the road to buy the necessities for dinner that night. My mother was always busy with the younger children, and I knew that was just my duty as a part of the family."" My grandmother lived without the automobile luxury while growing up; for me, it is hard to fathom what life would be like without a car attending to my every move. This American icon has changed life as we know it today; most conveniences we enjoy stem from the ownership of our automobiles.
The automobile not only presents great conveniences, and it doesn't just help speed up the pace of our lives; this versatile machine exists as a means of finding a specific identity. Stereotypically, there is a specific make and model that fits certain types of people.