BARACK'S JUNKER
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| Also listed in: Appalachian Populists | Interfaith Peace Coalition | Licking County Pro-Active Citizens (www.licopac.org) | Perry County Democratic Forum |
According to the on-line magazine, SLATE, more than a few swing voters have learned to trust Barack Obama because Barack and Michelle once drove a car so far gone that they could see the roadway rush by through a hole in the floor.
http://www.slate.com/id/2205324/
Well, hail to the chief! Aside from his campaign planks on the war, the economy and domestic policy, this hole-in-one story gives me a personal connection with the Obamas as well.
Back in the '60s, Hummingbird and I drove a similar junker, a Corvair wagon whose long tenure on snowy, salt-covered Ohio roads had rusted away the floorboard under the front seats. Watching the road passing beneath didn't bother me much, since we had long given up on keeping any heat in that car anyway. But I did get frequent images of the front seats suddenly collapsing to earth in a spray of rust and fabric and flesh at 60 mph.
Between us, we were only making a few thousand dollars a year back then and so a new car was out of the question. But this unnerving image of sudden ejection convinced us finally to talk a body shop into welding a steel plate across the undercarriage to keep that Corvair on the road.
If I had known this would prove to be a political plus with the voters, my career might have taken a different turn. I just thought I was being cheap.
In fact, we rarely get rid of a car until it's almost too crippled to make it to the junk yard. We once had a Chevy Impala that blew up during a test drive on the freeway only days after we traded it in. Typically, we don't think about giving up on our ride until it has at least 250,000 miles. My last car, a Volkswagen, developed an engine fire on the way to the dealership as a trade-in. (The dealership agreed to $100 trade-in but refused to let anybody drive the car again).
Maybe one reason voters like the hole-in-the-floor story is that we've just hired Barack to drive an economy and a country whose foundation looks more like Swiss cheese than granite.
And we want the guy in charge to have been there, done that, rather than some Wall Street types (like Paulson) who probably never had a gum wrapper underfoot in his Bentley, let alone a rust hole.
http://www.slate.com/id/2205324/
Well, hail to the chief! Aside from his campaign planks on the war, the economy and domestic policy, this hole-in-one story gives me a personal connection with the Obamas as well.
Back in the '60s, Hummingbird and I drove a similar junker, a Corvair wagon whose long tenure on snowy, salt-covered Ohio roads had rusted away the floorboard under the front seats. Watching the road passing beneath didn't bother me much, since we had long given up on keeping any heat in that car anyway. But I did get frequent images of the front seats suddenly collapsing to earth in a spray of rust and fabric and flesh at 60 mph.
Between us, we were only making a few thousand dollars a year back then and so a new car was out of the question. But this unnerving image of sudden ejection convinced us finally to talk a body shop into welding a steel plate across the undercarriage to keep that Corvair on the road.
If I had known this would prove to be a political plus with the voters, my career might have taken a different turn. I just thought I was being cheap.
In fact, we rarely get rid of a car until it's almost too crippled to make it to the junk yard. We once had a Chevy Impala that blew up during a test drive on the freeway only days after we traded it in. Typically, we don't think about giving up on our ride until it has at least 250,000 miles. My last car, a Volkswagen, developed an engine fire on the way to the dealership as a trade-in. (The dealership agreed to $100 trade-in but refused to let anybody drive the car again).
Maybe one reason voters like the hole-in-the-floor story is that we've just hired Barack to drive an economy and a country whose foundation looks more like Swiss cheese than granite.
And we want the guy in charge to have been there, done that, rather than some Wall Street types (like Paulson) who probably never had a gum wrapper underfoot in his Bentley, let alone a rust hole.
