detroit resurgence on the south end
Down at the weekly South End Diner Vintage Auto Ad Hoc Meeting, Hudson Bob, one of the old car guyz piped up in dual exhaust mode how he’d seen a George Will article the day before. Politics is usually about as popular as debating whether each others’ wives are still attractive, so ordinarily the talk revolves from tools to Chevys to the next road trip to the latest obituary, both car and people. Hudson Bob was pounding his cup of joe for emphasis and his place mat looked like the garage floor where 4 Finger Fred kept his 1956 Studebaker with the leaky oil pan.
“The man says we’re done already with electric cars! Only the tree huggers were buying them and that was before they started spontaneously combustin. SUV’s are back, he says” The old car guyz aren’t real big on electrics. Hell, the old car guyz don’t even like cars with more than 6 volt batteries and don’t get them started on electronics or you’ll have Big Larry coming out from behind the grill waving a spatula like it was a Tazer to quiet them down so the other customers, meaning me, might enjoy their runny eggs and cold toast. “George Will says we got so much oil and gas right now we could all drive semi’s.”
Most of us down at the tree hugging South End drive old beaters, not quite vintage, just sputtering, backfiring, perforated muffler, gas guzzling jalopies waiting to die and end up in Hudson Bob’s spotless shop with the heated floor and the hydraulic lift and every tool SnapOn ever made. Or out back up on blocks in the blackberry and nettle cemeteries. None of us, I notice, have oil rigs pumping crude 24/7. But we got plenty of tidal potential, some solar, gutter hydro, lots of wind, especially me, blowhard extraordinaire, and so I wondered Out Loud since the Diner is sort of half prayer meeting and half town hall and a third AA, why on God’s green earth we would root for the Saudis and hope the electric car companies – the American electric car companies – catch fire and go broke. About half an hour later – after Big Larry had broken up the riot and deputy Pringle with the Island County Sheriff’s office had interrupted his donut break – we separated and went to our separate corners. The judges, Brenda and Anita, the morning waitresses, gave them a technical knockout and I slunk out to my old Toyota pickup, hoping at best to catch a tailwind on the long drive home on Loser Highway.
Mostly I drove with my tail between my legs. I’m thinking of buying a Prius and going back next meeting.
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