Congratulations Graduates! - The Crab Cracker

Moonshine
Wisdom & Wit
Detroit Resurgence on the South End
By Jack Archibald
“Down at the weekly South End Diner Vintage Auto Ad Hoc
Meeting, Hudson Bob, one of the old car guyz piped up in dual
exhaust mode how he’d seen a George Will opinion piece the
day before. Politics is usually about as popular as debating
whether each others’ wives are still attractive, so ordinarily the
talk revolves from tools to Chevys to the next road trip to the
latest obituary, both car and people. Hudson Bob was pounding
his cup of joe for emphasis and his place mat looked like the
garage floor where 4 Finger Fred kept his 1956 Studebaker with
the leaky oil pan.
Story by Jack
Archibald.
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“The man says we’re done already with electric cars! Only the
tree huggers were buying them and that was before they started
spontaneously combustin. SUV’s are back, he says” The old
car guyz aren’t real big on electrics. Hell, the old car guyz don’t
even like cars with more than 6 volt batteries and don’t get them
started on electronics or you’ll have Big Larry coming out from
behind the grill waving a spatula like it was a Tazer to quiet them
down so the other customers, meaning me, might enjoy their
runny eggs and cold toast. “George Will says we got so much oil
and gas right now we could all drive semi’s.”
Most of us down at the tree hugging South End drive old beaters,
not quite vintage, just sputtering, backfiring, perforated
muffler, gas guzzling jalopies waiting to die and end up in
Hudson Bob’s spotless shop with the heated floor and the hydraulic
lift and every tool SnapOn ever made. Or out back up
on blocks in the blackberry and nettle cemeteries. None of us, I
notice, have oil rigs pumping crude 24/7. But we got plenty of
tidal potential, some solar, gutter hydro, lots of wind, especially
me, blowhard extraordinaire, and so I wondered Out Loud since
the Diner is sort of half prayer meeting and half town hall and a
third AA, why on God’s green earth we would root for the Saudis
and hope the electric car companies – the American electric car
companies – catch fire and go broke.
About half an hour later – after Big Larry had broken up the riot
and deputy Pringle with the Island County Sheriff’s office had
interrupted his donut break – we separated and went to our
separate corners. The judges, Brenda and Anita, the morning
waitresses, gave them a technical knockout and I slunk out to
my old Toyota pickup, hoping at best to catch a tailwind on the
long drive home on Loser Highway. Mostly I drove with my tail
between my legs. I’m thinking of buying a Prius and going back
next meeting. Nobody’s gonna accuse me of learning any lessons
this late in life.”
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