A short editorial I wrote just ran on Sunday. I've written a lot of these, but this was the first to really have anything personal in it. It felt good that the feedback for this one was much better than it has been for other articles. I don't mind if somebody disagrees with something I write, but to get a lot of positive and personal responses was still a refreshing change of pace. I know that I just write about cars, but it's still nice to know that I can connect with my readers on a personal level. Anyway, enough of my insomnia-inspired rambling. I'll just post the article:
No Particular Place To Go
The first car I ever bought with my own money was a 1978 Mercury Marquis. The year was 1998 and I had just graduated high school. I had very little in the way of money, and the Marquis was the most interesting car that I could find in what I was generously calling my budget. My friends at the time were mostly driving hand-me-down Japanese cars from the early nineties, and not one of them merited a second glance.
My Marquis was a far more interesting vehicle, and since it was the size of small house, I could fit quite a few people in it. Gas was $.87 a gallon that summer, so the 4500lb curb weight and carbureted 351 V8 didn't keep us from taking long and pointless drives to nowhere in particular. This was an activity that took up as much of my free time as possible between the ages of 16 and 21. I had the ability to travel, but at night there was nowhere to go when you aren't old enough to get in to the places where things are happening.
Not having a destination didn't matter though, the car was freedom, and just being in the car and out of my parents' house was a feeling second to none. Even though I left home right after buying the car, the car was still freedom. Open road, some good music and the rumble of the V8 were all I needed to forget any problem I might have had.
I know this phenomenon is not unique to those of us who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio in the 90's. The films American Graffiti and Dazed and Confused paid tribute to other eras and other places in America where this was the thing for young people to do when the sun went down. Surveys have found that this is something that young people have been doing less and less of in the past few years, for the first time ever in the history of mass-produced automobiles.
Some of the reasons for this make sense, much higher gas prices, economic downturn, and the fact that you would likely be crucified if you ever publicly admitted to the kind of 5 mpg tours of nowhere-in-particular that were perfectly socially acceptable 13 years ago. There is also another factor, one that just makes me sad. It is the fact that young people are now more attached to the internet and social networking than they are to their cars, and people who are 16 now will be looking back in a few years at their first iPhone the way I look back at my old Marquis.
My love for cars dates back to a time long before I had a license, but I'm confident that I would have loved my first car every bit as much even if I hadn't been able to tell you make or model it was. Cars were always so much more than a machine, and I worry about what will happen to the automobile in a future where people never use them to go nowhere.
No Particular Place To Go
The first car I ever bought with my own money was a 1978 Mercury Marquis. The year was 1998 and I had just graduated high school. I had very little in the way of money, and the Marquis was the most interesting car that I could find in what I was generously calling my budget. My friends at the time were mostly driving hand-me-down Japanese cars from the early nineties, and not one of them merited a second glance.
My Marquis was a far more interesting vehicle, and since it was the size of small house, I could fit quite a few people in it. Gas was $.87 a gallon that summer, so the 4500lb curb weight and carbureted 351 V8 didn't keep us from taking long and pointless drives to nowhere in particular. This was an activity that took up as much of my free time as possible between the ages of 16 and 21. I had the ability to travel, but at night there was nowhere to go when you aren't old enough to get in to the places where things are happening.
Not having a destination didn't matter though, the car was freedom, and just being in the car and out of my parents' house was a feeling second to none. Even though I left home right after buying the car, the car was still freedom. Open road, some good music and the rumble of the V8 were all I needed to forget any problem I might have had.
I know this phenomenon is not unique to those of us who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio in the 90's. The films American Graffiti and Dazed and Confused paid tribute to other eras and other places in America where this was the thing for young people to do when the sun went down. Surveys have found that this is something that young people have been doing less and less of in the past few years, for the first time ever in the history of mass-produced automobiles.
Some of the reasons for this make sense, much higher gas prices, economic downturn, and the fact that you would likely be crucified if you ever publicly admitted to the kind of 5 mpg tours of nowhere-in-particular that were perfectly socially acceptable 13 years ago. There is also another factor, one that just makes me sad. It is the fact that young people are now more attached to the internet and social networking than they are to their cars, and people who are 16 now will be looking back in a few years at their first iPhone the way I look back at my old Marquis.
My love for cars dates back to a time long before I had a license, but I'm confident that I would have loved my first car every bit as much even if I hadn't been able to tell you make or model it was. Cars were always so much more than a machine, and I worry about what will happen to the automobile in a future where people never use them to go nowhere.
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Disappointing burgers, action packed drive.