Back in 2008 I was sitting with an acquaintance in a bar, one of those funny loudmouths who likes to troll you in casual conversation, and especially in bar conversation. He said he was voting for Obama over Hillary, because you couldn’t trust a woman with her finger on the button. Hormones, you know.
I laughed, even as I understood that there were people in the world who believed that, and weren’t joking when they said the same thing. (Although probably all were voting for Mike Huckabee instead.)
So imagine my non-surprise when I saw this thing, written by an author whose work I sorta respect, if “been meaning to read ‘Weekends at Bellevue’ ever since I heard a thing on ‘Fresh Air'” counts as respect, on that very topic. I guess Time magazine, like all media outlets, is just click-whoring these day, but for cryin’ out loud:
The long phase of perimenopause is marked by seismic spikes and troughs of estrogen levels, which can last for more than a decade in many women. But afterward, there is a hormonal ebbing that creates a moment of great possibility. As a psychiatrist, I will tell you the most interesting thing about menopause is what happens after. A woman emerging from the transition of perimenopause blossoms. It is a time for redefining and refining what it is she wants to accomplish in her third act. And it happens to be excellent timing for the job Clinton is likely to seek. Biologically speaking, postmenopausal women are ideal candidates for leadership. They are primed to handle stress well, and there is, of course, no more stressful job than the presidency.
In other words, bitches be crazy, but after they dry up, they’re wizened crones, natural-born healers and midwives and oh go fuck yourself.
I am not, repeat not, a woman who sees sexism lurking around every corner. I understand that social change takes time, and am buoyed by the different gender landscape I see forming in the young people of today. And even though this piece reaches a crescendo of a group hug about women’s beautiful differences and the necessity of treating our moods as nature’s “intelligent feedback system,” I just don’t need this crap right now. Totally.
Although it did bring back a flash memory I haven’t recalled in ages, about a former Washington bureau chief at the Columbus Dispatch who once told a reporter doing a “girls on the bus” feature in the ’80s about how he didn’t think women were suited for campaign-trail work, because Periods, and he always knew when one was in progress, because of his very sensitive nose.
It was a good thing that guy only came to town twice a year, is all I can say.
Speaking of moody bitches, there’s not much in Slate that gets me reading past the first take, but I did enjoy this piece on “haterbragging,” i.e., the practice of using one’s online critics as self-promotion, with novelist Jennifer Weiner as the queen of all haterbraggers, citing her epic online joust with Jonathan Franzen, who always comes off as a dour old poop while she runs giggling rings around him.
A final female-centric story to make it a hat trick: The return of sidesaddle riding. Charlotte comes from an old horsey family, maybe she knows better, but as for me, this is one style I was never, ever tempted to try. One thing I learned from this, though: If conventional, leg-on-either-side horsemanship is known as riding astride, sidesaddle is called “riding aside.” Two letters makes all the difference.
Finally, I remember a friend whose sister went to work for Yugo, the now-defunct car company, in the former Yugoslavia, which was at the time a guaranteed-employment economy. The day she first toured the plant, the leader was embarrassed to come upon a large bin of upholstery scraps with two or three loudly snoring workers catching a midday nap. I guess this story shows it could have been worse.
Happy Tuesday! Sorry for the late update today — I did Kate’s taxes last night. She’s getting a refund.
Charlotte said on April 14, 2015 at 10:44 am
Oh sigh. I can hear my grandmother, who never forgave the world for not allowing her to compete at polo (she was very good), rolling her eyes from beyond the grave. As an exercise in horsemanship, I suppose learning to ride aside isn’t a bad thing, but racing? The seat is so unstable that ladies riding in the hunt field were, if they could afford it, required to ride with a groom to help them back on when they fell, and to catch their horse should there be a tragic petticoat adventure. My grandmother did threaten to go back to it in her old age once her hips seized up, and she won a shit ton of trophies in sidesaddle classes as a young woman (also, driving. One of my favorite little-used skills, I can drive a team of two) but I have to think she’d be among those saying why? we fought so hard to get rid of that?
On the other hand, she’d be thrilled about HRC. I’m sure that just as we’ve seen an eruption of the ugliest kind of racism with Obama’s election, we’re going to get a similar eruption of ugly misogyny. And while I have reservations about the Clintons, and the way they spearheaded the party’s move to the right, I find my self more thrilled than I anticipated to see her as the frontrunner. Said granny also asked for her first democratic primary ballot ever in 2008 “so I can vote for that woman!”
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Deborah said on April 14, 2015 at 12:27 pm
This is sort of a haterbrag that I indulge in: I read an architectural review of an art museum built in North Miami, FL, where I grew up. The reviewer referred to the museum as in “blue collar Nort Miami”. Now when anyone asks where in Miami I lived, I gleefully respond with, blue collar North Miami. Which is essentially true.
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Catherine said on April 14, 2015 at 12:31 pm
Would you please add a Twitter button? I want to tweet out a link with the quote, “In other words, bitches be crazy, but after they dry up, they’re wizened crones, natural-born healers and midwives and oh go fuck yourself.” But I am too perimenopausal to bother.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 14, 2015 at 12:56 pm
Another bit of Stouderbait: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/04/14/lincolns-funeral-route-to-be-retraced.html
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MarkH said on April 14, 2015 at 1:20 pm
Jeff(tmmo) beat me to it as I arrived here with two clips from CBS This Morning for Brian about the anniversary. The first one fits with Jeff’s Dispatch link, but zeros in on the resurrection of the rail car that took the body to Springfield.
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/artifacts-brought-together-150-years-after-abraham-lincoln-assassination/
The second is (allegedly) little-known trivia about the assassination.
http://www.cbsnews.com/media/abraham-lincoln-assassination-5-facts-you-may-not-know/
I wouldn’t have thought of ‘Stouderbait’, but….’s’good.
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Basset said on April 14, 2015 at 1:36 pm
I’ve been on a horse once, at the fair when I was ten. Didn’t care for it.
One of Lincoln’s carriages was a Studebaker, made in South Bend, and is on the Stude museum there. Sound of its hinges and latches and such was recorded and used in a recent Lincoln movie.
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Dexter said on April 14, 2015 at 1:46 pm
In good old Waterloo, three years ago, a man was trying to give a Yugo away, “FREE” was whitewashed on the windshield…it was there forever. No takers. http://www.reddit.com/r/Detroit/comments/2camde/do_you_remember_when_the_woman_in_the_yugo_was/
I remember the bridge blow-off clearly because it happened when I got both the Freep & The News daily…tons of photos and stories. The Big Three of the 80’s also had many workers utilizing schemes to find napping crevices and nooks during their shifts, as Ben Hamper chronicled in “Rivethead”.
The airline dozer was one lucky sumbith, yeah? Damn, man…wake up and smell the coffee.
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brian stouder said on April 14, 2015 at 2:08 pm
Indeed. NBC news has an article that’s worth a chuckle, about ‘the day the music died’
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/150-years-ago-today-how-lincoln-assassination-was-covered-n341246
The AP news bulletin buried the lead!!!!
WASHINGTON, APRIL 14 — President Lincoln and wife visited Ford’s Theatre this evening for the purpose of witnessing the performance of ‘The American Cousin.’ It was announced in the papers that Gen. Grant would also be present, but that gentleman took the late train of cars for New Jersey.
The theatre was densely crowded, and everybody seemed delighted with the scene before them. During the third act and while there was a temporary pause for one of the actors to enter, a sharp report of a pistol was heard, which merely attracted attention, but suggested nothing serious until a man rushed to the front of the President’s box, waving a long dagger in his right hand, exclaiming, ‘Sic semper tyrannis,’ and immediately leaped from the box, which was in the second tier, to the stage beneath, and ran across to the opposite side, made his escape amid the bewilderment of the audience from the rear of the theatre, and mounted a horse and fled.
Etc etc
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Sherri said on April 14, 2015 at 2:19 pm
Before we make too much fun of the baggage handler falling asleep, let’s stop a moment to consider how many jobs he might have been working. In 2005, Alaska Airlines fired all their (unionized) baggage handlers and replaced them with non-union contract workers from Menzies Aviation. In addition, Alaska and Menzies are fighting the city of SeaTac’s minimum wage requirement of $15. (Alaska is claiming that the City of SeaTac can’t impose a minimum wage on the airport, only the Port of Seattle can. The issue is in litigation.)
The entry level wage for baggage handlers at Menzies is $10.88. That baggage handler may be working another job, or working a lot of overtime, just to make ends meet.
Here’s an article from one of the local public radio stations, from before SeaTac passed the new minimum wage, that explains the difficulty in trying to organize a union for the baggage handlers: http://www.kplu.org/post/why-sea-tac-airport-workers-cant-join-union-better-pay
So I say, let’s give the guy a break.
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Sherri said on April 14, 2015 at 2:24 pm
My numbers are slightly off; Menzies employees who handle baggage for Alaska get $12/hour, but not all Menzies baggage handlers get that: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/baggage-handler-may-food-stamps/
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Dexter said on April 14, 2015 at 4:02 pm
That bureau chief at The Dispatch was one repugnant bastard, I say. Here’s something much more pleasant to get in your nose, listen to the first few lines here, as the Belfast Cowboy lightens our hearts with this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciK2n2MebTU
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Jolene said on April 14, 2015 at 4:18 pm
Here is a more general discussion of Sherri’s point re the baggage handler: Lots of employed people don’t make enough to live. As a result, taxpayers are, essentially, subsidizing their employees.
If I understand the map in this article correctly, the state in which the largest proportion of recipients of federal benefits are also employed is Texas. Quite a comment on Rick Perry’s “Texas miracle.”
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Judybusy said on April 14, 2015 at 4:46 pm
Oh, FFS on that Time article! The vitriol that will be unleashed towards Hillary will be so ugly. It’s one of the reasons I voted for Obama in the primary; I thought the right’s obsessive hatred of her would be a barrier to electability. I’ll vote for her; I don’t think there’s no other dem who can touch her.
Basset, your short story about your horseriding adventure made me chuckle. Jeff TMMO, took me 2.5 seconds to get Stouderbait. Well done.
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MarkH said on April 14, 2015 at 5:45 pm
I got curious, went looking. This must be Nancy’s menstruation culprit.
http://www.dispatch.com//content/stories/local/2014/06/08/as-dispatch-bureau-chief-writer-covered-7-presidents.html
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nancy said on April 14, 2015 at 6:36 pm
Yep, that was him.
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Heather said on April 14, 2015 at 8:22 pm
I have a sensitive nose too. I can always sniff out the smell of old fart.
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Kirk said on April 15, 2015 at 1:53 am
That guy was a shame, to say the least. After his comments re: “gal” reporters on the campaign trail came out, he was forbidden by the editor to ask any questions should he be so fortunate to attend a presidential press conference. I knew a guy who was a lobbyist who told me a juicy story about punching the guy out when they were on the desk at the Lantern, Ohio State’s student paper. I heartily shook the guy’s hand.
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Wim said on April 15, 2015 at 5:41 am
At about the age of ten I was at one of those historic-enactment joints–it must have been Silver Dollar City–where selected children were taunted and bullied into attempting to ride side saddle. I rode perilously aside for perhaps a minute before the horse scraped me off on a gate post. Then Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies scared the piss out of me, by way of asking me–in character–if I was all right. I had at that time never seen the show. I didn’t have a clue that she was anything but the crazy old lady she seemed.
Anyway, side saddles: damned uncomfortable and unnatural, as best I recall.
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Alan Stamm said on April 15, 2015 at 6:59 am
Speaking of a flash memory, “reading past the first take” places you — us — firmly in a time and place that is no more.
Thanks for dusting it off, Nancy. I enjoy the revisit.
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beb said on April 15, 2015 at 8:42 am
The bit about post-menopausal women reminded me of an early Larry Nivens novel, Protector. He proposed that many of the afflictions of old age were really a failed transition to a “protector” of enhanced strength and obsession defense of the species.
And speaking of science fiction… here’s word from the NRA convention:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/04/14/3646567/no-go-zones-nra-convention/
No-go zones in Dearborn, Michigan. Seriously? Street signs in Arabic. Sharia Law. Little yellow signs that Detroit cops can’t pass? Those must be the “Welcome to Dearborn” signs since Dearborn is **not** Detroit. Latest I’ve been making frequent visits to Dearborn to get my comics fix and I can assure you street signs are in English. Most store signage is in English or English and Arabic, and the only law present is the sign in the Chinese Restaurant advertising hallal meats. There ouht to be a law agaist stupid but thee aren’t enough prisons to house them all.
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Jeff Borden said on April 15, 2015 at 9:29 am
My Lord, I hadn’t thought of George Embrey in decades. He was quite the douche, all right.
Originally, I thought the culprit might be another political writer –an angry, red-faced, chain-smoking drunkard with a short fuse and a fondness for matching white belt and shoes– who I once spent a cold, winter night searching for in the snows of German Village. He’d gotten hammered somewhere and disappeared between the bar and his house. The night city editor had me and a couple of photographers out driving around, kicking snow drifts and looking behind shrubs and hedges. Eventually, he did make it home, I guess, because he showed up for work the next day.
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Bitter Scribe said on April 15, 2015 at 10:55 am
The more I hear about Jonathan Franzen, the less I like him. He had a ridiculous piece in a recent New Yorker arguing that climate-change activists are bullies because they shut down discussion of other environmental issues, or something. The guy just never seems to know when to shut up.
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MarkH said on April 15, 2015 at 11:44 am
Borden, that description of the Dispatch political reporter rang familiar, but couldn’t come up with the name. So I got curious again, went looking, but stopped at this eye-opening article from Columbus Monthly from 2004. I had no idea of the transitions that had started at the Dispatch in the ’90s.
http://www.columbusmonthly.com/content/stories/Classics/2004-Dispatch.html
Two things stood out for me, side from the editorial turnaround after the passing of JW Wolfe: the rise of Mike Curtin to the top of Dispatch Printing Co. And the fact that Bob Smith went back to editor of the paper after working as editor-in-chief of both Ohio Magazine and Living Single Magazine, where I knew him and worked as the ad director. Already at retirement age, I believe he had already had a heart attack prior to going back. What was the story behind this?
Kirk, I had also heard that Smith has passed on, no?
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Kirk said on April 15, 2015 at 1:00 pm
Bob Smith is alive and living at the Forum, a highly regarded retirement community in north Columbus. And Curtin is a state legislator now. Became one of the smartest guts in the General Assembly the instant he walked in.
And Jeff B., the same angry drunkard of whom you speak once called the newsroom about 5 p.m. one Saturday, having arisen from a booze-fueled coma in the city lockup. I believe someone was dispatched to bail him out.
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Kirk said on April 15, 2015 at 1:52 pm
Or one of the smartest guys.
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MarkH said on April 15, 2015 at 2:11 pm
Kirk, I had also been meaning to ask you about Dan Gearino. He’s sill a reporter at the Dispatch, right? He has a wicked wit, as I remember from 20+ years ago when he was a reporter at the Casper Star-Tribune, Wyoming’s largest daily.
Back in the day, he and the editors would joust with Sen. Alan Simpson on a regular basis. This was back in Al’s ‘up the old gazoo’ days centered around the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, when he was perpetually mad at the press. This was topped, you may remember, with the parking lot scuffle with NPR’s Nina Totenberg (both claim they have long made up and are friends).
Anyway, Simpson was so angry with his ‘disloyal’ home state paper for jabbing him that he took to writing letters to the editor nearly every day. The ST finally called a halt to this by formally notifying him that he could write all he wanted, but they would only print his letters three times a month. Not long after, Dan wrote a pretty humorous but critical column about Big Al and the press. This brought the usual angry, lengthy response, which the ST printed. The next day Gearino appeared again on the editorial page. This time the entire column space above the page fold was blank. Except for the upper left corner where Dan’s picture and byline appeared with the following in tiny 8 pt. type:
“Windy, ain’t he?”
For the usually conservative paper to pull that was priceless.
Let Dan know someone out in the hinterlands has a long ago memory of he antics.
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Sherri said on April 15, 2015 at 2:30 pm
This podcast episode from Death, Sex & Money about Sen. Simpson is fascinating.
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Kirk said on April 15, 2015 at 2:36 pm
MarkH,
Gearino indeed is still a business reporter at The Dispatch. Smart guy, good writer. Remarkably adept at making sense of arcane rules and regulations regarding various public utilities.
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Jeff Borden said on April 15, 2015 at 4:07 pm
Kirk, that sounds about right. He was a nasty piece of work. I could definitely see him in the drunk tank after mouthing off to a cop.
One of my favorite old guys at the Big D was an alcoholic –I hesitate to name him– but he had talent and did good work before lunch. After four gin & tonics at the State-Fourth Grill, he was worthless in the afternoons. You may recall him wedging his brand new car between two trees while leaving the Wigwam, when he mistook a walking path for the driveway. One of the trees had to be cut down to free his vehicle. He had his problems, but he wasn’t a dick like the fellow we’ve discussed above.
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nancy said on April 15, 2015 at 4:54 pm
I assume you guys are talking about Gene of the Hubcap-Sized Ashtray. His ex-wife was also a multi-pack-a-day smoker. I often wondered what the atmosphere was like in their home.
This week on “Mad Men,” we were introduced to the concept of the “NAC” note in a Rolodex — shorthand for “no afternoon calls,” for the reason Borden notes. Some people are just no good after lunch.
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Jeff Borden said on April 15, 2015 at 5:00 pm
Yes, indeed, ol’ Gene, resplendent in his burgundy, polyester slacks with the white belt and white loafers, wreathed in a cloud of stale smoke and anger.
Whatever might’ve been said of NAC, the man had talent and could write the hell out of things. I recall a story he did about a murder case in Franklin County Criminal Court, where the jury had returned from dinner at an Italian restaurant, then acquitted the accused later in the evening after more deliberation.
I’m paraphrasing badly here, but he wrote something like, “The jury in the Joe Dokes case, full of rigatoni and reasonable doubt, returned a not guilty verdict.” On deadline, that’s a pretty cool line.
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Kirk said on April 15, 2015 at 5:08 pm
JeffB@31: agreed. hell of a writer, hell of a drunk. My dad ran into him at a Boy Scout jamboree when both were about 12 or 13. He was known back then as “Little English.”
MarkH:
From the Columbus Dan Gearino:
Kirk,
That’s actually my distant cousin, also named Dan Gearino. He’s now the editor of a legal trade paper in North Carolina.
Every few months, I get messages from people who think I’m him.
I’ve traded messages with him and he seems like a decent guy.
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MarkH said on April 15, 2015 at 6:37 pm
Kirk —
Thanks for that update. Amazing. What are the odds of two different reporters with that same name. To further complicate things, after NC Dan left the Star-Tribune, another reporter showed up there for a lengthy time, Jeff Gearino. Sadly Jeff passed away about seven or eight years ago from cancer, I believe. He was in only his early ’40s. I am assuming he may be related to NC Dan and not Dispatch Dan.
Sherri — thanks or sharing that podcast, a great story. I bet many people around here don’t know about that, so I’m sharing. And that’s the Simpson most Wyomingites know. I’ve met him a couple of times (his former law partner from Cody is a local judge and family friend), and it doesn’t surprise me that at this time in their lives he and Ann would engage with strangers like that. He really is a great guy, no pretenses. What you see on TV is what you get in person.
BTW, the rift between the Simpsons and the Cheneys appears to have some permanence. It goes back to Ann and Al’s refusal to endorse daughter La Liz Cheney’s efforts to unseat well-liked and fellow republican Senator Mike Enzi in the last election. It blew up at a public political event in Cody, when the usually affable Lynne Cheney confronted he Simpson family about it, getting in their faces in front of the public and press. Lynne later denied it and Al wound up calling her a ‘bald-faced liar’.
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Julie Robinson said on April 15, 2015 at 7:33 pm
Our staff went to lunch today and first thing the waitress offered us their margarita special. I just laughed. Do people still do this?
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Deborah said on April 15, 2015 at 8:30 pm
When I started working at an architecture firm, 1981 in St. Louis it wasn’t unheard of at all to have a beer or a glass of wine with your lunch. By the end of my working career 2+ years ago that was pretty much frowned on. Thirty years made a big difference in that regard.
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Joe K said on April 15, 2015 at 9:20 pm
Basset,
Your Preds are making my Hawks look terrible, I was gonna bet a tenderloin on the series but now I’m glad I didn’t.
Pilot Joe
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basset said on April 15, 2015 at 9:42 pm
Wasn’t aware of that, don’t follow the Preds or team sports in general… I will go to a Nashville Sounds game sometimes with the guys on cheap beer night, haven’t been to a Preds game in years and never to the Titans.
a playoff win would certainly be good tv exposure for Nashville, bumper shots of our downtown with lots happening, gotta love that.
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brian stouder said on April 15, 2015 at 11:00 pm
Well, I’m officially an old man, now.
A few weeks back, I shared with y’all how our car was destroyed by suddenly bursting into a flaming fireball (perilously close to the house) – and our insurance quickly and graciously sent us with a very fair settlement…..and now we’re in the end-stages of acquiring another car.
And, for the record? – I HATE shopping for cars, anymore!!
I remember when my dad put a brand new 1972 Chevy Impala on the driveway. It was a 4-door with vinyl* top (does anyone offer a car with a vinyl top anymore?), automatic transmission, air conditioning….and it might have had an am-fm radio – but that part I don;t recall. But what I remember was that the sticker price was a bit more than $4,800, and dad was beside himself that “the thing costs $5000, and it has a PLASTIC DASHBOARD”!! (because it should have been steel, right?)…..
and now, for a pleasant used car, one is immediately north of $10,000; and if one want to spend 7 or 8 thousand dollars, you’ll get a car (or SUV) that’s north of 120,000 miles, and 6 or 7 years old.
We’ve tentatively selected a replacement (an ’08 Ford Escape) – and I like the thing, but there is no joy in the prospect of finalizing the purchase. Certainly, not like when I was 19, anyway…
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brian stouder said on April 15, 2015 at 11:01 pm
*I was going to say, again, whoever invented the spelling of the word “vinyl” must have been chemically impaired…
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Dexter said on April 16, 2015 at 3:43 am
Joe, your Hawks did OK. My friend in Montreal is crowing again as her beloved Habs beat Ottawa with a flurry of goals, all 4 in the 2nd period as they beat beat those tough-as-hell Senators 4-3. My Red Wings are ready to take on a better Florida Panthers gang tonight.
brian: I was lamenting the same line to my wife yesterday. We always got the Journal-Gazette when I was a kid and in the ads were always a double-column of used cars for $100. Then those “starter” or “fishin’ cars” were $250. A few years later when news magazines were incredulous that The Big Three were soon to be charging six grand for a family sedan…”Will They Pay It?” read the headlines.
Soon the fishin’ cars were a grand, and now they are about $2,500 around here. My mechanic is higher-priced than most but he always sends me coupons for $20 or $40 off my next service and if I eyeball a different truck or car, he’ll run it through the checks for free. Any leaks, any smoke, any shaky cylinder/piston action, no dice.
And repairs…sheesh! I used to spend maybe $35 once in a while for a tune-up, a battery could always be had for $29 if you watched for the sales…this week I needed a battery, a starter, and some flex-pipe and other exhaust work done. The battery alone was $156 for the cheapest one. The total bill was $591 and I used a $20 off coupon.
I got a copy of the free car book today…best deal in it is a 2003 Ford Escort for $1,795 OBO. 120,000. In that entire book there is nothing even close to $1,000 of course. Your potential Escape deal seems fair by today’s standards. Nothing sucks like a lemon.
And for anybody between 20 and 80, there’s a great bio on the greatest entertainment drummer in history, the incomparable Richard Starkey, our Ringo Starr. I happen to be a big fan of Ringo, and I say fuck you if think he’s a joke. He’s a huge touring success now at age 74. 🙂
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ROGirl said on April 16, 2015 at 6:24 am
“burgundy, polyester slacks with the white belt and white loafers”
aka The Full Cleveland
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northierthanthou said on April 26, 2015 at 5:45 pm
I think it’s ridiculous to see how much time is spent discussing female hormones, as if entire wars hadn’t already been fought because men felt the need to get in a pissing match.
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