I still remember being shocked when I went north for college and figured out that everyone in Cambridge did not wash their cars for the weekend.
Washing your car for the weekend was just as normal as mowing the yard. I had a single parent, my mom, for much of my childhood. I can still remember her washing her car on Saturday afternoons. Even as a youngster, I helped.
It was expected that you would show up at church in a clean car. When we moved to the city, Mt. Airy, I can remember for a short period of time one of local filling stations had teenage boys who would wash your car. They would actually come and get the car and bring it back.
When I got a car, I spent many Saturday afternoons making sure it was clean for cruising on Saturday night. Taking care of the family car and eventually yours was just one of the things you learned while growing up.
Even today, forty five years after my first car, I still enjoying cleaning up our vehicles. I am no longer the only child who luckily got to drive some great cars while young. I am the adult trying to make my vehicles last as long as possible. Keeping them clean and changing the oil regularly helps makes that possible.
We will be attending a family reunion tomorrow so I have my wife's Toyota Avalon shining. I washed it twice.After that I cleaned up my truck which had just finished a late night dash from the beach which this time of year means it had collected lots of bugs.
Today I discovered that Spray Nine, a product we use to clean our skiff, is very effective in helping get bugs off your vehicles and is especially effective in cleaning aluminum wheels. It seem to take oil, grease, tar, and brake dust off very well.
If you are in the Roanoke area, Spray Nine is available at the Northwest Tru-Value Hardware on Brambleton Ave. If you are in a coastal town, most boat shops carry Spray Nine, but if you are having trouble finding it, you can buy it at Dudley's Marina in Cedar Point.
Washing vehicles is nice work because the progress is readily noticed, and you can do it even on a hot day because you can get just wet enough to stay cool. Getting wet is also allowed even if you are an adult.
I doubt the Southern tradition of Saturday car washing is as strong as it once was, but it will live on in our family.
