4/16/24
Newsletter #584
The Crack of Dawn
Here’s something you should know. Were you being chased by a monster, and there happened to be a 1923 Model T Ford sitting there, and you had time to get in and potentially drive away, you could never possibly figure out how to start the car, and you would then be eaten by the monster. Even if you figured out how to start the car – setting the magneto, and the choke, then hand-cranking it – you would never understand how to make the car go forward. It had three pedals on the floor, none of which being what you’d suspect they were. Going right to left, you have the brake, reverse, and high and low gears. The throttle is on the steering wheel. To speed up or slow down you pushed the lever up or down.
Previous to the Ford Model T, there were hundreds of car companies, but all together there probably weren’t 100,000 automobiles in the entire world. Each company made five to ten cars.
From 1908 to 1925 the Model T sold 19 million cars. Ford didn’t begin using the assembly line until 1913, so those first one million cars were made just like everybody else’s cars, one car at a time. Once he started using the assembly line, he sold 18 million cars in a decade, and there was no real competition – David Buick was selling five cars a year, Cadillac was selling ten. For a decade there were more Fords on the road than all other brands combined. Therefore, if you couldn’t understand the Model T three pedal system, you couldn’t drive a car.
However, by 1925, of the many possibilities and configurations that had been attempted by all of the other car companies – most of which had disappeared – the standard driving set up that we all still accept was adopted and was codified by the Ford Model A, introduced in 1927.
Ford sold over 20 million of these in the next five years, but it was already in 2nd place to Chevrolet.
Therefore, were a monster chasing you, heaven forbid, and there was a 1927 Ford Model A that just happened to be waiting there, and you hastily got in, there is a far likelier chance that you would get the car started and escape from the monster. That’s all I’m saying.
OK, changing subjects, watch your brains.
It seems ungentlemanly to speak of past love affairs, and I’ve tried to avoid them. However, some of them happened so long ago now, it’s just silly to waste them.
For instance, when I lived outside Medford, Oregon in 2002 I went out with a woman known as Crazy Amy. You think I might have suspected something from outset, but no. Amy was an attractive slim redhead with big blue eyes. Her hair was so red and her eyes so blue that not once, but twice (while I was around) old ladies stopped her to comment on her looks.
Be that as it may, Amy did not receive the sobriquet “Crazy” for no reason. We had been set up by Bruce’s wife Ida. I think Ida expected fireworks, but there weren’t any. It lasted a few months, I came to really like her two little sons of six and seven, but she was crazy, and I don’t need to go into it, just take my word for it. I mean, come on, the town had already named her Crazy Amy before I got there.
I love this. Thank you, Amy. I was seated at my computer in my single wide trailer, with my three kittens hopping around, and the phone rang. It was Amy. I said, “Hello.”
In a very serious tone, Amy said, “I just saw A Lion in Winter.” I said, “Yeah, how did you like it?” And Amy said, “I was so confused thinking about what you would think of it that I’ve decided that I can’t see you anymore.”
I was aghast, “But I thought everything was going so well.”
She was firm, it was over. And it was. I never saw her or the two kids again.
Honestly, if the truth be known, I am rather ambivalent about A Lion in Winter (1968), of all films. To me it seems miscast. There’s too big of an age difference between Katherine Hepburn and Peter O’Toole. She’s trying to play young and he’s trying to play old. Otherwise, it’s pretty good, for being a play, I suppose. I don’t care.
It doesn’t matter what I think of A Lion in Winter. However, since Crazy Amy broke up with me because of it, I’ve had plenty of time to consider my opinion, which I never got to tell her. Although it wasn’t what I thought that she didn’t like, it was what she imagined I might think.
Well, there you have it.
Interesting reason to use for a break up. Wish I had that in my arsonal way back when.