America’s love affair with the automobile has been well chronicled, witness Tony Kornttesen’s statement in Radio Daze, “If you want to see ground zero of American Pop culture, go outside any sunny weekend, and look at the men proudly washing and waxing their cars. What wine is to France, what electronics are to Japan, cars are to America.” If this could be personified, defined, then bottled and dropped in the ocean to wash up on a distant shore—it would have to contain an illustration of an American driving solo in a convertible down a windy country road, from the artistic perspective of a heat induced undulating blur, headed into the sunset. The native, who would uncork this genie from the bottle, would ponder this picture of one thousand words and mumble a mantra that would sound unmistakably like escapism, adventurism, and freedom.

To the extent that this love affair represents adolescence and immaturity, I say wonderful! Youth (adolescence) is something we all cling to desperately trying to slay the dragon of old age and infirmity, if not, the grim reaper himself. And immaturity explains the white haired, white beard, and white-nautical cap adorned by the codger speeding down the highway in his convertible British Triumph, winking at the twenty year old girls, as he attempts to recapture his misspent youth. To the codger, the car has become the symbol of power, status, and most of all—virility. As the quote points out from Peter Marsh and Peter collett’s, The Love Affair. “For the young the car represents an escape from parental control, moving the rituals of courtship from the parlor and porch swing to lover’s lane and the back seat.” The codger can only dream of yesteryear and back seat high jinks, because the car now represents a weapon to do battle with Alzheimer’s, atrophy, and convalescent hospitals.

Who’s better off, the “mature” person (who risks nothing, especially his dignity) who listens to the calcification of his arteries (who like Baily White’s quote in, Someday the Old Junker will be a Neat Car Again, “Not everyone regards the automobile as a dream machine or the open road as a mythic path to Oz. Some people drive cars to get to places and do things, they treat their cars like appliances and don’t ask much more than that they run.”), or the immature ALIVE person who occasionally makes a fool out of himself—I can’t conceal my bias.

No, I plan to go out (leave this earth) in a blaze of glory, embarrassing those loved ones who would rather lock me in the basement, with Ross Perot’s—crazy Aunt. I’ll purchase a ‘57 Thunderbird, ‘57 Corvette, or a Wilson Picket-Mustang Sally; get myself a ten-gallon western hat, maybe some boots, and a western scarf to wear around my neck. Baroque, you say? Immature—huh? Well, I certainly hope so, because when I can’t function anymore I am going to have my car and its concomitant erotic crankshafts, pistons, clutches, fins and bumpers and any other risqu