Driving as a young man and the Church are deeply intertwined in my memory. My father taught me to drive in a 1968 VW bus while we waited for Sunday school to start. This was back in the day when we went to church three times on Sunday, first for priesthood, then Sunday school, then back in the afternoon for Sacrament meeting. We lived about a 30 minute drive from the chapel, and only had 90 minutes between the end of priesthood meeting and the start of Sunday School. So my mom and younger siblings would get a ride, and after I was 12 my father and I would drive to an empty parking lot by the church and just park. I would read magazines and dad would usually prepare some lesson he had to give. My dad taught me to drive in this parking lot, complete with a manual transmission.
My first time on the road was with an uncle in Idaho Falls, who let me drive his car around the temple there. Then while visiting my grandparents in Star Valley WY, I was driving on the back roads at 14, which was common in rural farming communities.
I turned 16 in the summer between my sophomore and junior years, and on my birthday my mom drove me to the DMV and I took my driving test. I passed, and have never looked back. While I never had a car of my own while living at home, we did have two cars, and I became the church designated driver. We had a chapel much closer by this time, but still a ten min drive. So I drove to early morning seminary that started at 6 am, I drove to MIA on Wed nights, and to church dances and other activities, hauling younger siblings and neighbors to and from church. Probably 90% of my driving in those years before I left on my mission where church related.
I was pulled over for speeding on New Years Eve heading to the Stake Center for the dance, with my date and another couple. My father has a less common first name that I have as a middle name. When the officer looked at my license (the same one you see above), he said “are you Bishop Bill Sr’s son?” I said yes, and he said he was a good man, and he let me go with a warning. To this date I have never gotten a moving violation (parking tickets are another matter!).
I have so many fond memories driving to and from Church activities with my friends; Lance going around a curve so fast in his parents big Cadillac that it scraped the asphalt as it tilted and sent sparks flying, Ron in his 66 Ford Ranchero sliding around on the unpaved road in front of the church when they re-paved it. Or Phil in his Triumph Spitfire driving on the canal banks of Central California.
Do you have any memories of driving to church?
(bonus points if you know the title song reference without looking it up. )
Wheat & Tares 
In Tennessee, the REAL ID driver’s licenses have a star on them, so seeing the title, I thought this post was going to be about you finally breaking down and getting a new California driver’s license with the REAL ID star even though your old license doesn’t expire for another year.
Your post did remind me about how as a child we drove from Kaumakani (home) to Hanapepe (chapel) multiple times on Sunday, but then I think we just started staying at the church and having a picnic lunch and such for the hours in between. Looking back, that seems like such a bizarre set-up. I wonder if the other Protestant churches that Mormonism’s services were modeled on originally had that same morning / evening split or what. All the UMC churches I know have AM worship service, then Sunday School, then a second worship service so that you can choose either the earlier morning or later morning worship service and everyone can attend Sunday school without a long time gap for either.
Living on the East Coast, those multiple Sunday meetings were an inconvenience for sure. When I was just a baby, we actually moved from our home to one closer to the church because so much time/money was spent going back and forth to all the multitude of meetings. We had 6 kids at home and one car at that point in time, so it was a problem. As an older primary aged child, I would have a church friend come over between meetings (or I would go to their house) on the occasional Sunday. As we all lived pretty far apart and went to different schools, it was a way to develop friendships. I can see how this schedule would have worked okay in Utah, but for everywhere else it was a lot.
My dad would play a game (at least that’s how I chose to define it) when driving us to church. He would stay in the left lane until we were almost to the right lane entrance of the ward building, then get upset if someone dared to be in the right lane when he needed to turn. We learned to be quiet and pretend all was well. Sometimes we had to make a U-turn and try again. Fun times.
As a teenager, my parents continued to practice the benign neglect parenting method. They would drop me off for mutual (it was required that I attend), but I was on my own to find a ride home. Not a single person there lived in my neighborhood, or even near it. It was always out of the way for whoever I found to give me a ride. I still don’t know why they thought that was okay. On occasion, I would get a ride home to find that they weren’t home and I didn’t have a key – more fun times! I did eventually learn to have a key in my possession at all times.
Statistic time. In 1960, about 56% of households had one car, 19% had two and about 2% had two+. By 1970, 48% had one car, 34% had two or more cars. By 1980, the tide had completely turned: about 35% had one car, but 51% had at least two cars. In 2024, 58% of American households have 2+ cars. In Montana, there’s a whopping 5.2 vehicles per household. New York City has the lowest car ownership rate by far at 45.6%
For us in the 1970’s, my parents had a single car. For the “blessed” families with 2 cars, the prosperity gospel would go to work and Bishopric and Stake callings would ensue. We lived close to the chapel in the Jello belt and would walk to church, occasionally. Pre-block scheduling, it was still inconvenient to go back and forth driving or walking, three times each Sunday and expensive with high OPEC gas prices. It was a whole 0.6 mile/12 min walk. However, if someone walked to church, it was looked down on. Between tithing/fast offerings/ward budget/mission savings/church gas/etc. the church took a large portion of a families budget. As a missionary in Latin America, 35 yrs ago, any member with a car had automatic leadership.
My memory of cars related to church, would be after Stake Conference. It was a mad dash to get out of the Stake center parking lot. Members would have borderline road rage with each other. They would always state, “please observe all traffic laws and be courteous to other drivers upon returning to your homes.” Fortunately, my grandma lived next door to the Stake Center. We would walk to her house and wait until the stampede ended, before returning home. Later, when my wife and I were recently married with a single car, living back East on a student budget not within walking distance, I would have to hitch a ride to attend leadership meetings.
Cars are defiantly tied to LDS culture. If everyone had home church, which was adored during the pandemic, one could live the “gospel” without transportation. In 2025, how often are the investigators who missionaries bring to church the people in the community, 9%, without a car? How many people enjoy church with Joel Osteen, Bishop Jake or even BYU worship service on BYUtv since it does not require a car? I get it. We live in a society, outside of NYC, dependent on cars. However, the gospel of Jesus Christ tells us to not be part of the world and car culture. How many times, have you drove into the LDS parking lot, and members immediately notice, ah you got a new car?
In pre-Global-Warming days, the Utah chapels’ parking lots were often snow-covered. On one such Sunday in 1980 in Naples Ward (Uintah County), the newly-licensed teenage son of a bishopric member decided to use the family’s 1963 Plymouth sedan to make ‘wheelies’ (sliding around in circles in the deep snow), with his friends. The good news: they had fun. The bad news: the rims on the car were so dented (from sideways forces) that the car could not be driven home.
10ac, you win for the most pleasant commute to church! I spent many days making the commute from Poipu to Barking Sands over the last few years while on the island for a project I was leading. I loved stopping at the bakery in Kaumakani for something for breakfast. Also my favorite place in the whole world to surf is Pakalas just down the road. The hike through the jungle is the icing on the perfect lefts pealing outside.
As a lifelong Utah resident, I’ve always lived less than a mile from where I attended Church. I enjoy going for walks, and yet once I had kids, I understood why everyone drove. It’s a way to corral small children.
My only childhood car&church memory that sticks out is my grandmother’s funeral. Grandma’s funeral was at a church, then we all drove to the cemetery, then drove back to the church for the dinner. Our family stayed to clean up and so by the time we left, the parking lot was mostly empty of cars. There was a lot of snow, though, packed down by the cars. We were in a van and my dad (in his late 30s/early40s) flipped out. He spun us out in wheelies all over the Church parking lot, with my mother hollering to stop it and all us kids screeching with joy. It was the first indication I had that there was something very wrong in my father’s relationship with his mother. He had zero connection to his emotions (except for anger), and I can’t imagine what maelstrom of unexplainable emotional forces caused that post-funeral spinout, but I’ve never forgotten that experience.
BB,
I am kind of jealous that you always seem to get work assignments in such beautiful places and that you have such great surf stories. Even though we used to go to the PX at Barking Sands several times a year (it’s where I bought my first camera), I still don’t have a clear idea of what the base/post was /is actually used for. I just knew we had to have my dad’s army ID (medically retired) to go there.
Honestly, the most scenic childhood church commutes for me were the Sundays that my dad would have to travel to speak at the other branches/wards sacrament meetings as a high councilman /district person (Kaua’i only became a stake a few years before we left). Driving home from like the Kapa’a branch/ward building in the evening, watching the sunset and singing church hymns together as a family in our station wagon, were some of the most formative spiritual memories of my childhood. So maybe that old evening sacrament meeting thing wasn’t such a bad religious idea after all, now that I think of that.
The song in the title came out when I was 10. My oldest brother brought the album home and it changed how I thought about music.
My family had two cars in the 70’s. One that my dad drove to work and church, and a van that my mom hauled seven kids around with to activities. Dad was always in ward or stake leadership, so Mom had most of the taxi duties. She listened to WJR (AM out of Detroit) and when we asked, “are we there yet”, would tell us how many songs until our destination. On Sundays we drove to church in the morning and evening, but had to ride in silence.
I got my license at 16, but after a couple of accidents, my parents took me off the family insurance and I didn’t drive for the rest of high school. My dad took me to early morning seminary every day and we’d listen to NPR on the fifteen minute trip. I’d get a ride from the church to school and took the big yellow bus home. On Wednesday nights my mom dropped me off for MIA and afterwards I’d have to wait with the deacons for her to pick me up.
When there was new snow, some of the kids would spin “doughnuts” after seminary and on more than one occasion, failed to avoid one of the cement pillars in the middle of the lot. Other times the teacher would leave class to find that his hatchback had been moved to the other side of the building.
Half a century later, I’m a much safer driver. I mostly listen to NPR and still turn up the radio when Deep Purple comes on.
By the time I left high school in England, my father was in charge of the church building programme in Britain. So my first paid work was transporting equipment from one building sites to another in a vw combi tray back, with up to a ton of plant on back. It had a 1200cc motor and drum brakes.
It amazed me how many motorways have a down hill run to a roundabout. With drum brakes that produced nobraking, so life was very exciting for a few minutes, trying to figure out how to get a top heavy vehicle, with no brakes, to slow down enough to get round the roundabout.
We also had at some stage a thames van with blankets in the back to get youth of mixed sex to stake activities. I was not sure what was happening under the blankets as I was usually driving.
I have two memories associated with driving and church. When I got my learner’s permit, the first time my dad was available to talk me through the process of driving was one Sunday on the way home from church. My mom took most of the family home in the big van we usually rode, and my dad, who probably drove separately because of extra meetings before church or something, rode home in his car with just me, driving for the first time. I lost my dad this year, so I appreciate being reminded of that memory.
The second memory was a couple of years later, when a friend in the ward who attended the same school as me needed a ride home from school. The route home took us past the ward meetinghouse. The parking lot was empty and covered in a fresh coating of snow just the right depth, moisture content, and temperature to be quite slippery. We took a 15 minute detour through the parking lot, taking turns driving, in a rear-wheel-drive manual transmission pickup truck, gunning the engine and spinning around and around. Forward donuts, reverse donuts, anything you might ever want to try when there’s nothing around to crash into. It was great fun. I don’t have much recollection of what the parking lot looked like when we were done as it was starting to get dark, but I’m sure it would have been quite the sight the next morning.
Thanks, Bishop Bill, for stirring up memories at the intersection of Church life and learning to drive (pun intended!).
My first experiences behind the wheel were in my stake center parking lot, where my parents took me on rudimentary driving lessons at age 14-15 on most Saturday afternoons, when the lot was empty. There were a couple of obstacles (landscape islands) to maneuver around, which made it an excellent training ground for the basics of motor vehicle operation. It was also where I made my first horrible attempts at parallel parking, using traffic cones to represent the other cars. I was aware of other families in my ward who did this with their teenagers as well. When I eventually got my learning permit at 15 1/2, I became the designated family Church chauffer, and relished the opportunity. My parents drilled into my head to be extra, extra cautious when arriving to or departing from the Church parking lot on Sundays, as there were often little kids running about, especially after Church was over, and just about every Church adult I knew was only one or two degrees away from knowing a familiy that had a toddler that was run over and killed in a Church parking lot. “You don’t want something like that on your conscience, especially at your age,” they often warned me.
Another common feature of being a teenage Mormon driver is that my driving privileges were contingent upon seminary attendance. This was CA, so early-morning seminary was the only option in my area, and my parents were relieved to not have to drive me anymore themselves. But in hindsight, I don’t think its wise to put inexperienced, half-asleep teenaged drivers on the dark, sometimes icy roads just to get to an overhyped daily bible study, which they sleep through anyway. It’s amazing I made it through all 4 years unscathed. Teens don’t need extra non-specific “blessings” for the arbitrary trial of sleep deprivation, they need more sleep! A growing body of scientific research suggests as much. This guides my current decision to allow my now high school age child to opt out of seminary, but that’s a subject for another day.
I’ve lived/worked in Europe on a few occasions, and very much enjoyed being able to take public transit most places while I was there, including to Church. Almost half of the ward would be on our light rail train going to or coming home from Sunday meetings, which was fun. After returning to the US, I began to notice how truly hostile American infrastructure and urban planning can be toward people who don’t have a car of their own to get around, especially in the outer suburbs where bus routes are sparse or non-existent. Our current US (outside of the Morridor) Church building is no exception, being built way out in an exurban fringe unincorporated zone, far from any public transit access point, and on a stretch of dangerous rural highway with no sidewalks or other pedestrian approaches. In my ward, there is a quadraplegic man who wants to attend church but can’t, because his accessible van broke down, and he can’t afford a new one, AND he normally relies on public paratransit to get around but the Church meeting house (being on unincorporated county land) is just outside of the paratransit service area. Personal, privately-owned transportation is a great convenience and privilege, but it (or the lack of it) also introduces a whole world of problems of its own.
I had to goggle that song. And then I hit play. I had no recollection of it. But I did have a memory of my ears being repeatedly assaulted(ok, having to listen) by Deep Purple that an older brother played on his 8 track. I much preferred Fifth Dimension (actually Laura Nyro, but I didn’t know it yet. Always wanted to “Surry down to a stoned soul picnic”) Those 8 tracks tapes just keep playing.
I have a memory of riding home from church, a thirty minute drive. We kids all piled into the back of the Karmann Ghia. (How did we fit?). My older siblings got the bright idea of hiding me behind the seat. After a few miles, my brothers in panicked voices asked where I was. We thought it hilarious. Alas, the next couple times we tried that trick, all I got was a long ride in dark, cramped space.
This is a great trip down memory lane on those days as a teenager with pops teaching us how to drive and ride motorcycles. We lived in So California. In 72 we moved to the SF Bay area when I was 12.
When I was 8 years old at Little League practice, my dad showed up with a brand new 1968 Honda CT90. After practice, he put it in “Low Gear” and taught me how to ride it in the school yard. I’ve since always had one in the garage, regardless of other motos I’ve had. I remember riding it along Hwy 395, near Bridgeport, Calif (#HeavenonEarth), with my two cousins on theirs at 10 years old, while taking a break from deer hunting to “go into town” for a Jolly Cone. If you’ve been in Bridgeport and didn’t stop there for a burger, you made a mistake.
The family had 2 vehicles, a 73 Ford F250 and a 68 Plymouth Fury III. We piled kids in that Fury and went to Inter-stake dances all over the Bay Area. On one occasion, my younger sister and I were singing in the Oakland Temple Pageant. We were running late, and I had that dang Fury doing close to 100mph on the Warren Miller Fwy. I couldn’t go any faster because the dang thing was floating so much, I thought it was trying to fly!
On return from my mission, I let my then fiance, soon to be wife, drive my newly acquired 78 Pontiac Trans Am, complete with the gaudy bird on the hood. I couldn’t understand why she would drive so fast and then brake at the last minute. She told me she hadn’t worn her glasses with me yet, which she needed badly, because she wanted me to think she was cute. She was, and still is, and she let me know that she was blind in one eye! She has no depth perception! Even today, after 44 years, I have to remember that her depth perception sucks if she is driving!
When I was a newly minted private pilot in preparation fly for the USAF, I proudly took my wife on an evening flight over to Napa, for the proverbial “$50” burger. On return to our little airport to land in the dark, upon turning on the landing light, it failed. The little airport only had reflectors for runway edge lights. No landing light, equals no runway edge! Fortunately, my wife had bought me one of those huge, 4 D-cell Mag Lites for my birthday, (The brightest they got back then), and she had to open her window and hold it outside to illuminate the runway edges on final approach!
All vehicles in our lives get us where we want to go with relative ease, compared to pre-automobile days, even when they are not running as tip top as they should. I find religion, the COJCOLDS included, provides a vehicle for our sense of religious community, but sometimes is lacking for real support of spiritual well being. It’s running, but sometimes not in tip top shape. I’m glad that as a young missionary I had an experience in Sydney, that made me have to differentiate the “Church” and the “Gospel.” I NEVER say “the church is true,” I will only say “the gospel is true,” because it always is, and always will be. That experience on my mission, as crummy as it was, gave me that ability to have that differentiation, and it has served me well throughout my life. Just like “church and state” should be kept separate, so, I believe, “church and Gospel” should as well. The church is a great vehicle, but occasionally needs to be cautiously driven.