I made a little extra money, and to be truthful, it got me out of the house and allowed me to hone my interpersonal skills. When I was of such a mind, the occasional socialization with attractive women was another motivation.
I have exhibited hermit-like behavior in the past. When you don’t really have any money or anyplace to go, hermatism ensues. Part of me felt sorry for myself and another non-sorry part sort of exhibited my midlle finger to the rest of the human race: didn’t suffer fools gladly. Bastards! I was deflecting the slim possibility that if I put myself out there in society, I’d be rejected. Wow. Self-discovery.
I have always considered myself a non-conformist. The old home town was pretty conformy: everyone is a republican and a church goer. They are all slim and coiffed and rich. I was never any of those things. Never wanted to be. But being the opposite of all those things made me stick out like a democratic, heathen, chubby, disheveled, welfare recipient sore thumb.
So without veering off into some sort of epic, PhD in Psychology thesis, let me just point out that
I have mellowed a bit. But still…
The clientele at the record store would typically walk in the door and immediately ask me or an associate what was selling the most. This was information we had on hand. Whatever people were buying, they’d buy. If it was a recording of vomiting, and it was in the top 10, out came the gold AMEX card.
This flock mentality had always bothered me. It still bothers me.
When I was younger, back in the late 70s when my liver still had a chance and my muscles were visible through the flab and none of my joints ached, I made some observations. Everyone in my home town had one of two cars: a Volvo Station Wagon or a BMW 2002. Some families had the former for Mom and the latter for Dad, but I am not generalizing. If you walk down the main shopping street of my old home town that’s what you would see parked at the curb. Volvo Volvo BMW BMW Volvo.
The men of my age wore Lacoste Alligator shirts and the women had disco hair. They went to bars at night met up and followed each other’s Beemers and Volvos off up onto the ridges for pre-aids sexual adventure. I’m not bitter.
For a while, after the 2002 rotted out, 325s were parked in the town spaces. Then there was a brief minivan epoch.
I am not going to fill this space with a complete vehicular timeline except to fast forward to today where the entire town (and most of the rest of my fellow countrymen) drive SUVs.
It’s stunning, shocking and embarrassing. Huge gas guzzling behemoths where the humbler, smaller cars of my youth once parked. They block the view and the rays of the sun.
No one rives a car older than 10 years anymore. Except me I think.
Anyway, I was tooling down the road in my 1987 Volvo Station wagon when an odd vehicle pulled onto the highway in front of me. It was tiny, dwarfed by the Suburbans, Land Rovers and Expeditions that sped by in both directions. As I crept up behing the tiny car, which was holding it own in the velocity sweepstakes, I suddenly realized it was a BMW 2002. Wow! It survived the rust plague! Some guy had fixed it up nice. So I took a picture and here it is. By the way, I plan on buying a Ford Flex as soon as I can.
