Car-Man Love

My first Honda found its way to me on the advice of a co-worker; a man with a well-earned reputation for being hard to please. When I overheard him expressing vehicular contentment one afternoon, I paid attention.

This because my previous car had been totaled in an accident. An accident which occurred the very same weekend I lost a job on Friday and attended the most miserly, god-awful wedding of my life on Saturday. 

(And no, dear readers, it wasn't mine.)

I forget what's never supposed to happen on Sunday, but it didn't include being cut-off by an inattentive motorist who impulsively attempted a left turn from the center lane of a multi-lane street.

The result of my valiant attempt to avoid the guilty party was that I skidded across the intersection (did I mention it hadn't rained for weeks and the pavement was unusually slick?) and came to rest on the opposite side against a high, carriage-era curb.

You might be amused to know that as a young man with an undeveloped sense of mortality, I was un-belted and thus struck my head against the windshield. In addition to answering questions you may have about the opinions and views expressed here at the Square Peg, this event also decided when I would commence the wearing of seat belts.

But I digress.

I was quickly tiring of the Chevrolet Cavalier supplied to me by the perpetrator's insurance company, and needed to know more about what had provoked my co-worker's highly irregular satisfaction.

In need of an affordable, reliable and durable car able to fit the constraints of my newly-reduced income and meet the demands of my primary job as a publisher's rep (which had me crisscrossing Chicago like a mayoral candidate on the eve of an election), he made it clear a Honda was required.

The red Civic hatchback I bought that January was a joy. Well-built, efficient and comfortable, it was small enough to maneuver into tiny urban parking spaces and big enough to haul a seven-foot bookcase. 

It was the first car I ever owned that did what the brochure said it would do. 

It was bulletproof. It's high-revving, four-cylinder engine was a wonder on the expressways, and was augmented by a nifty five-speed manual transmission. That drive train was the automotive equivalent of Cal Ripken—it never missed a game.

The four-wheel double wishbone suspension kept rubber pressed against asphalt, assuring maximum grip at all four corners no matter what the conditions. At speed, the lightweight Civic was a ball, hunkering down and carving up turns in a way no car with its price tag had any business doing.

That light curb weight also meant power steering wasn't necessary, and the unassisted steering imparted information even as it remained thankfully light in parking lots and parallel parking situations.

In a little over eight years I accumulated nearly 200,000 miles on it, proof not only of its durability but of its inviting driving character. I just loved being in the thing. With the addition of an aftermarket Alpine cassette deck which fed a pair of two-way Concord speakers, life could seem damn near care-free.

Alas, the Civic wasn't perfect. Low-end torque was in short supply. The brakes were so-so. The windshield glass was soft and prone to scratches and chips. And despite regular waxing, the finish on the body and wheel covers faded and peeled well before they should have. 

Yet in the face of such mechanical excellence, these were trifles. Mere trifles. 

The inevitable arrived in 1999. In need of a new car after having considered a modest restoration (nixed when I discovered insurance companies wouldn't recognize it), it was time to let go. Even with two-hundred thousand miles on the clock and a worn exterior I was shocked at what the dealer offered me. 

Honda's resale value is no myth.

The Japanese revere age because it reveals the essence of things. And insofar as my Civic is concerned, I couldn't disagree. My Civic remained a loyal and willing companion to the very end. Leaving it on the dealer's lot as I drove away in its shiny, new replacement felt like an unforgivable act of betrayal. 

Every now and then, it still does.

Amused

Is it not ironic and entirely appropriate that in 2015, where the one-percent exponentially increase the scope of their wealth and privilege on an almost hourly basis, that the presidential candidate receiving the greatest amount of free publicity is a billionaire?

LOL

The Wrong Men

No one enjoys a good, old-fashioned protest more than I. People not only getting angry, but getting involved and organizing and devoting time to the expression of that discontent is at the very heart of my definition of democracy.

We the people countering a war, Wall Street greed or police brutality forcefully but peacefully is such a powerful thing. I mean, Twitter rants are wonderful, but they're just not the same.

But protests can be misdirected and ill-informed just as often as they're consciousness-raising, life-changing events. Case in point would be the Seattle chapter of Black Lives Matter interrupting a small public get-together celebrating Social Security and Medicare.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders unwittingly became the target of these passionate—but misguided—protesters when they took the stage and demanded those in attendance hold Sanders accountable for police brutality and gentrification and the disparity of Seattle's public schools.

Perhaps they had confused Sanders with Baltimore police chief Anthony Batts or some generic law and order, right-wing Republican. But publicly harassing Sanders on the one-year anniversary of Michael Brown's death and demanding that he be held accountable?

Wow. Just wow. Guess all us white folk look alike.

If I was only mildly supportive of Black Lives Matter before this event, you can imagine my enthusiasm afterwards. Sorry, but I am not convinced that each and every police shooting of a black person is unjustified or the act of a runaway law enforcement agency drunk on its own authority.

Yes, there is a great deal wrong with the relationship between law enforcement and African-Americans, and only a moron would say otherwise. Yes, it definitely needs an infusion of understanding and mutual respect.

But I would like to see the folk who constitute Black Lives Matter march through the ghetto with their message and confront the gang-bangers, drug dealers and garden variety thugs who kill young black men at a rate that dwarfs that of the police.

Just for starters, I would like to see a gun-toting gang-banger informed that black lives matter. Then we can move on to law enforcement.

People, let's be clear: Michael Brown is not a martyr. And Bernie Sanders is not your enemy.

Forced Busing

There is a critical personnel shortage where I work. Hence the paucity of posts. Twelve-hour days spent behind the wheel are not conductive to creativity.

Only those of us too old or too far down the road of long-term unemployment remain; the younger and more employable of us having taken advantage of the rebounding economy and ditched the high-stress squalor of public transportation for greener pastures.

There is a dream-like quality to logging nearly three-hundred miles in urban traffic. Details and individual stops blur and become part of a larger, impressionistic canvas of repeated motions with no specific time or place.

Only the next address on your computerized manifest exists.

Then come the jarring intrusions of reality.

Dispatch, equally-stressed by a shortage of operators, is flooded with angry calls. Responding to outraged patrons, they insert themselves in your manifest and alter your course.

On a good day, this presents an opportunity to play hero as you swoop down out of the sky like the proud bus-eagle you are and rescue a rider from the social embarrassment of tardiness.

On a bad day, this saddles you with still-more stops you can't possibly perform in a timely manner without breaching the time-space continuum or altering the laws of physics. (Like any other bus driver-slash-physicist, I regularly search for wormholes.)

It is a frustrating little drama which finds the aggrieved customer playing the squeaky wheel and you an insufficient dollop of grease. This is likely the reason I am unusually fond of individually packaged moist towelettes.

Then the noisy thrum of the diesel engine and the mechanical whir of the transmission as it slogs through its gears yet again distances you from the evolving crises coming over the radio and the incessant stream of road construction.

You are once again a single, anonymous cell in the vast bloodstream of humanity. You set about delivering your passenger to their desired destination, not unlike the bit of oxygen headed to a muscle which ensures its continued function.

There is a brief sense of purpose.

Driving Lessons

I hate it when people can't do whatever they went. Especially when they're behind the wheel. Whether I'm responsible or not, I feel like the grinch who stole Christmas. 

Take, for example, the young woman who was attempting a right turn in a residential neighborhood I frequent. Palming the steering wheel as she attempted her turn, the vehicle swung wide as she was unable to sufficiently corral the heavy tires and 19” wheels of her SUV with a single hand.

This because her remaining hand was tasked with keeping the all-important cell phone pressed against her ear.

I don't know if she was giving consent to have her mother taken off of life support or making an appointment at her favorite nail salon, but the call was clearly a critical one and demanded completion—whatever the cost.

It was fortunate that as a technology-bereft ancient, I was only driving and thus was able to brake, giving her the entire width of the roadway to complete a turn which should have required half that space.

None of this is especially unusual, given the six-hundred or so miles I put on every week in the course of my job. It is practically routine.

What was unusual was the reaction of Iona Apple.

Curious to see the face of my latest bout with motor vehicular negligence, I glanced at Ms. Apple as we passed and discovered that she was glaring at me! 

Dismissing the possibility that she was a scam artist upset that her plan for engaging a metropolitan bus in a head-on collision had failed, I realized I had exhibited the unforgivable gall of being there.

Yes, I had compromised her awesomeness. Her inalienable right to drive however poorly she needed to when it infringed upon her use of technology. She wasn't guilty of distracted driving; I was guilty of seeing it.

OK. Got it.

But despite the injured feelings, I admire this woman. Her addled priorities and twisted sense of causality are flawless. They are perfectly representative of twenty-first century America. 

Her phone call completed, civilization may now continue for another day. Or at least until the next incoming call.

Brutal Truth

In childhood, nightmares end when you wake up.

In adulthood, this is when they begin.

Sometimes, a Democrat's Best Friend Is a Republican

It's hard to believe Donald Trump once stood with Bill and Hillary Clinton as an avowed New York City Democrat. But times change, don't they? 

Utilizing the m.o. that built his real-estate empire, Trump is seeking the easiest path forward which will yield the great-possible reward. Which in this case is being President of the United States of America.

But the Donald knows better than to run as a Democrat. It's too tough. Too much is expected of you. You have to formulate policies and programs. Ideas are expected.

No, it's easier to run as a Republican where, thanks to the Tea Party, all you have to do is shoot your mouth off like you're the most obnoxious drunk in the bar and the very people Republicans manipulate best will crawl out from beneath their rock and praise you for being “real”.

Yes, rip your opponent(s) a new one for failing to be conservative enough and voila! The nomination is yours.

Fearing being left behind, the other candidates will then ramp up their rhetoric in the hopes that they, too, will compete. That they, too, will be seen as “real”.

So after appeasing the noisy minority who applauds this kind of politicking, the front-runner then find themselves confronted with a much larger and very different type of race.

It's as if after proving they can play "Chopsticks" better than anyone on the block, they then have to prove they're the leading particle physics researcher in the nation.

Thanks to the distorting influences of their right-wing, Republican presidential candidates find themselves ill-equipped to compete in a race which (still) demands so much more than put-downs and half-witted accusations and half-assed smears.

It's like quality control in reverse. Their own nominating process ensures the least-competitive Republican candidate will compete.

Not that I'm complaining.