Archives for January 2014

Ever since I was a kid I’ve been crazy about cars. And I might as well include trucks, motorcycles, dune buggies and anything else equipped with wheels and an engine. If it can be driven, just hand me those keys. I’ll take it out for a spin.

My obsession may have been stimulated at least in part by simple geography. I spent most of my childhood at the end of a peninsula on the Maine coast. And over time it seems reasonable that I would come to think of Route 27, the serpentine stretch of two-lane blacktop connecting my hometown to coastal Route 1, as my own personal on-ramp, a gateway to every other road on the planet.

Whatever the source, I definitely caught the “car bug” at an early age, regaling childhood friends, relatives and total strangers with random automotive statistics: 0-60 times, quarter mile speeds, comparative horsepower ratings and the like, the way other eight-year-old boys reeled off the batting averages of their favorite big league ball players.

When the original Ford Mustang debuted at the New York World’s Fair in April of 1964, the nationwide launch came as a complete surprise to most Americans. Not me. Although I was as smitten as anyone by the Mustang, I wasn’t the least bit surprised.

By the time the hoi polloi caught onto Ford’s new “pony car” I’d been avidly following its development for months. Magazines like Motor Trend and Sports Car Graphic had been providing me with regular updates via fuzzy “spy photos” and debates over which name Ford would decide to bolt onto the new car’s sheet metal flanks (Cougar and Allegro were considered the front runners).

So when I finally slipped behind the wheel of my first car, a 1956 Chevy (previously driven by Boothbay Harbor’s version of the “Little Old Lady who only drove it on Sunday” my friend Doris Farnham), I was ready to hit the open road. Time flies whether you’re having fun or not but I certainly had tons of fun racking up the million plus miles I’ve driven since then. Over the years I’ve owned dozens of vehicles: a couple of AMC Hornets, a Dodge pick-up, a bunch of Fords and Hondas and even a few of the more exotic marques.

There were a couple of Fiats, an Opel, several Mercedes and a sinfully posh Jaguar XJ with Wilton carpets, Connolly hides and those oh-so-British, burled walnut picnic tables for my backseat passengers. Can you say “Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?”

I’ve also owned around 15 motorcycles ranging from 50 to 1100 cc. I was even briefly the proud owner of a metal flake orange 1975 Suzuki RE-5, the world’s only mass-produced rotary engine motorcycle!

Which brings me to my current dilemma. Given my age (let’s just say “early sixties” shall we?), and reasonably good health, I figure I’ve got maybe 20 good driving years left. Here’s the problem. I’ve recently test driven a selection of the latest models and found the whole experience deeply disturbing.

Apparently I’ve become a member of a newly endangered species: We’re the ones who prefer a clutch, manual gearshift and large, clearly marked knobs for the radio and heater so we can keep our eyes the road. That’s right. We actually look at the road while driving. Weird huh?

It gets even weirder. We also use mirrors and turn signals, dim our high beams for oncoming traffic, and obey the “Keep Right Except to Pass” law. Yes, Virginia, that really is a law.

For me, driving is never a passive experience. Yet modern cars are rapidly evolving into passive entertainment capsules where the fact that you’re hurtling down the road at lethal speeds serves as just one more irritating distraction from your critical “infotainment” priorities.

I have absolutely zero interest in a “self-parking” automobile with a jumbo, interactive “infotainment” screen, adaptive cruise control and (God forbid!) “hands free steering.” Unfortunately, pretty soon we won’t even have a choice in the matter. These and similarly inane examples of technology-run-amok are rapidly becoming standard equipment on every make and model on the lot.

Maybe I’ll follow Jay Leno’s example. Leno still owns the 1955 Buick he bought for $350 back in 1972. It looks the same except it’s been modified with disc brakes, radial tires and a contemporary drivetrain. Maybe I’ll find another ’56 Chevy. Even with similar modifications it wouldn’t cost much more than the pricey new models.

Besides, if I’m going to be driving off into the sunset, why not go there in a car featuring the best of both world’s: modern underpinnings and a steering wheel the size of a Domino’s pizza!

Original Appeared in the Boothbay Register

Goodness, where has the time gotten to? It hardly seems possible that enough of those old black and white calendar pages have already flipped across the flickering screen of our lives to prompt another list of New Year’s resolutions.

Yet, here we are, once again watching the last traces of sand slip through the hourglass; with the old year fast fading and the new one waving enthusiastically from the bus stop, we’ve not a moment to lose.

Regular readers of this column may recall that, for some years now I’ve chosen to exempt myself from the whole New Year’s resolution rigmarole. That said, after quietly revisiting the subject in recent months, I’ve decided to reverse my long held position. Yes, friends, hoisting high the age-old banner of self-improvement I will once again be compiling my annual list of New Year’s resolutions.

This time around however, things are going to be different. This year, I’m approaching “the list” from a radically new perspective; a critical format change if you will, which (if I do say so myself and frankly if I don’t who will?) I actually consider rather brilliant.

I am so confident in the transformative power of my new system that I predict many of you will soon be scrambling to adopt it. If that should be the case, by all means, feel free; adopt away! In the magnanimous spirit of 21st century “open sourcing,” consider the sharing of this simple, yet revolutionary insight as my New Year’s gift to you. Ready? Steady? Here goes:

Be it hereby resolved that henceforth each and every item on my annual resolutions list shall, prior to inclusion on said list, be “Certified Reality Based” by the Internal Department of Interesting Original Thoughts (IDIOT).

Ayuh, you heard it here first chummy! I’m actually proposing a strictly reality based approach to the ritual of annual New Year’s resolutions. Is that revolutionary or what? Come on, admit it.

After wrestling for decades with a series of ever more wildly optimistic, totally unrealistic pie-in-the-sky New Year’s resolutions, followed inevitably by the all-too-familiar train wreck of dashed dreams, hijacked hopes and sucker-punched self-esteem, I’ve stumbled upon a foolproof solution. Foolproof? Yes foolproof!

For the first time ever, my new system addresses the underlying problem, the core issue at the heart of this annual dilemma; the inescapable fact that every list I’ve ever compiled has been hopelessly and irreparably unrealistic!

I’m amazed it’s taken me so long to see the truth. In every resolution I’ve ever made, going back to earliest childhood, all of my naïve hopes, dreams and aspirations for self-improvement were doomed to failure right out of the gate, destined to be devoured by the lurking chimera of impossibility, dashed on the rocks of ludicrously high expectation!

It’s just that simple folks. The scales have dropped from my eyes and it’s become clear that the only rational way forward is to follow the marvelously stress free path of drastically lowered expectations.

With that in mind allow me to share with you my first-ever, extremely brief, yet highly achievable, list of “Certified Reality Based” New Year’s resolutions:

Physical Fitness: I begin this New Year totally confident that I will (for the first time ever) achieve all of my physical fitness goals. Having completely abandoned the absurd late night infomercial driven ambition of developing “rock hard abs,” I’ve set my sights a whole lot lower: I hereby resolve that at some point in the course of the next 12 months I will develop a set of abdominal muscles that can be accurately and definitively located in the course of a routine, half hour office visit by an appropriately trained and licensed medical professional.”

Diet: I hereby resolve to consume at least one serving of “vegetables” (i.e.; one medium sized bag of corn chips, one large box of wheat thins, etc.) per month and limit my daily intake of “between meal snacks” to not more than three servings (i.e.; one pint of Ben and Jerry’s, one and a half whoopie pies or two bowls of Cap’n Crunch with milk, etc.).

Financial: In the coming year I hereby resolve to reduce the crippling effects of financial stress via the time-honored method of Fiscal Quarantine: placing all credit card bills, unopened and unexamined, directly into the bottom drawer of my desk for a two-month “cooling off period” prior to opening.

Well, there you have it. Feel free to improvise to suit your individual circumstances and aspirations. I’m confident that with a little effort (very little in fact) my approach will transform the traditional, “I’ll do better next year,” into a triumphant “Mission Accomplished!”

Happy New Year!

Original Appeared in the Boothbay Register