Car Stories

Some recent and ongoing instances prompted not only the title of this posting, but the thoughts and memories expressed here.

Kindly bear with me...it really does all add up.

Yesterday I had the good fortune to drive and be seen in a 2002 JaguarS 5 Speed Manual Trans. My friend who is in between driving privileges needed to go to Toms River, and we left The Conversion Van Of Wonders behind for this one. I must note that Bob The Van Eating Dog behaved with the decorum said vehicle commands.

The leather interior is fully intact!

This car is sweet! When on the Parkway, I would be up around 90 and not even know it. Concentration as to MPH was certainly called for. And it's funny how people look at you when in control of transportation such as this.

It was a very nice break....

Which brings me to the point of this posting.


Back in the '70's when I was working in nightclubs I owned my first sportscar, a Datsun (now Nissan) 260Z. Damn skippy car! 2 Seater, Standard Trans, and completely manual steering. This car was da' bomb. I did all my own work on it and drove it with love and pride. Paid $4,600.00 some on 1970's dollars for it.

Pretty good for a nightclub singers income.

It met it's demise at the hands of a drunk driver rounding a corner at some 80 MPH in Paterson and hitting the right, front wheel square on. The frame was bent into oblivion. No one was hurt, but the car was headed toward room temperature.

Great car, it was. Between the insurance totalling it and what I was able to sell it for, I actually made a profit! I love Capitalism.

The Jag brought back that feeling of get up and go horsepower!


My next car was a Lincoln Mark IV. I decided I wanted something a fair bit classier and, frankly, gaudy, in a classy flashy kind of way. The interior was Kelly Green and comfy as hell. The ride was like being on air and, believe it or not, handled in a very similar fashion to the 260Z. Cornered quite nicely, thank you!

The car had to be sold 'cause I had gotten betrothed and the new wife and I bought a 1970 VW Camper Van. That, along with her car, made the Mark IV a luxury we didn't need.

Off it went...but it's memory lingered. It was probably the best car I ever owned.

Over the course of the ensuing years I had 2 Chrysler New Yorkers...one B I G one ( that would "pee" on my leg from an often clogged A.C. drain hose)...and one that was 1980's-ized for the tree huggers. The latter one talked to me and had the oh so useless feature of an A.M. Stereo radio. Only stereo stations it could find were an All News one out of New York, and some french speaking Canadian station I could only get in the winter and at night.

It used to tell us "A door is a jar" We'd tell it a door is a door, stupid car voice!

All the while the memory of my Mark IV lingered in my mind.

Flash forward to 1986...

My late wife's and my fortunes improved a great deal. She half owned a department store (The Economy Dept Store, Stanhope, N.J.) with her brother and I worked for Allied-Signal, now owned by Honeywell.

We owned the home (that I lost in '09) and Reagan was President.

Good times all around.

It was then I got for the very first time a BRAND NEW CAR, ordered before it was born, made just for me to my spec.

A 1986 Lincoln Town Car. EVERY option, sans Landau Roof, was included. And for the first time, I got a car on a lease.

Doing the lease thing turned out to be a huge mistake! The car was in the shop consistently for brake issues, and at that time, New Jersey's "Lemon Law" did not cover leased vehicles. That the law was modified is due to my car. My oldest son played on the same Little League team as the son of the guy who ran the Motor Vehicle Agency at that time. I told him my situation and he put into motion adding leases to the lemony scent thing.

I was a bit of a mover and shaker back in the day! Someday I may reveal my time as a lobbyist in D.C.

However, I digress.

I learned a lesson at that time that, in the midst of my homeless adventure, has come back into play.

2 kinds of people own Town cars:

A. Those who should and have the class to be seen in one and the means to afford it.

B. Those who shouldn't but do, because they got left money in a will, won the lottery, etc. and are vulgar, ignorant windbags trying to be something they aren't.

It is, without boast, I can honestly state that during my tenure as a Lincoln Town Car owner I was in the former of the 2.

I now have a kinda, sorta acquaintance of someone that is the latter, times 2. And drives one similar to the one shown below, only a gaudy metallic blue.




There is this guy who is obsessed with me and my current state of affairs. He can't help but to drive past Camp Scooter South at The Home Of Falling Prices and yell out to me, of all things:

"Obama"

Go figure.

I have yet to fully get this guy's licence number, but I have caught a good look at him and his "well fed" children. If MTV had existed in the late 70's and "The Jersey Shore" was using ignorant, obnoxious types, this guy would be the star. I think I was temporarily blinded by the sun's reflection off the gold "Horn" around his ample neck.

SIDETRACK: I have yet to see a single episode of said program, but read about it, hear about it all the time. Once I was at a checkout and saw an article about Snookie that said she at one time had an eating disorder that brought her down to about 88 pounds.

Now Snookie is just wee bit too tall to make biscuits for Keebler, so 88 on her looked really good. So I guess on Planet Twiggy in the Anorexia System she was a chubster back then, but not here on Tera Firma. Currently she appears to be a doughnut and a slice of pizza away from forever being emblazed on the label of "Mama Snookie's Tomato Sauce" jars.

Just sayin'...

So anyhow, Chubsy Ubsy drove past and would yell said insult as loud as he could. Displaying untoward behaviour for an owner of a Town Car, I could only surmise a few things:

A. Someone died and left him some cash. People of a Lincoln Town Car Stature would refrain from such boorish displays of behaviour.

(When driving the Jag yesterday, I immediately and instinctively exhibited proper demeanor for a car of that stature. Drives home, no pun intended, this guy's Springer Guest nature)

B. That he, like almost all of us, are frustrated with Obama and the regime and needed to vent, in an undignified way, to let off steam. I understand this, as I am NO fan of this President, and just kinda let it go. I presumed he associated my current state of affairs with Obama's vision of a "victim society" O&O'd by the government. So...que sera.. I just brushed off, figuring I did a public service, even if for one of the intellectually challenged.

This is...he doesn't know when to quit. It has ratcheted up to the point his tone is becoming unsettling and his well fed kid chimes in now as well. I wonder to myself, if he is capable of this in the light of day with people all around, what might be the next step when he sees the Bush Tax Cuts expire and he indulges in some cheap beer, come evening time.

He has started yelling at me where ever he see the van now. It is escalating.

So allow me to tell Chubsy Ubsy these facts:

One doesn't live in the same home for 27 years being a ward of the state.
I will have to file a return, and probably pay some taxes for 2010.
I rebuilt myself twice before, rising from the ashes, and making something work with little resource. Might even do that one more time, this go 'round

SIDETRACK: When I owned my Lincoln Cars, I didn't use them to deliver verbal weapons of mass distraction. In fact, one time when vacationing in The Pocono's with my late wife and 2 kids there was a reverse incident.

She had gone into an IGA for some food and all while I stayed in the car as my youngest slept. I noticed a young couple, maybe early 20's, walk to their older , worn truck about 2 rows in front of me. His eyes caught mine for a sec, and I could read his lips as he said to himself, maybe his wife as well:

"Rich motherf&*(kers"

His glare was hostile, without question. All I was doing was sitting in my car with my sleeping toddler, and this guy hated me for it. Truth be told, I can understand that more than Chubsy Ubsy's outbursts. Frankly, I felt bad for the guy and his wife.

That young and that bitter....angry...beyond their years.

Guess I just can't win the Battle O' De' Vehicles.

WOW...this is getting long.

So in closing, I would probably say to this guy....

"Walk a mile in MY shoes, food giant! Better you should walk than taint the Lincoln Town Car brand"

Until next time....