The Second Hand Man
February 21st, 1969

In light of the expected promotion that my father hopes to get within thenext few months, he bought his first car today. My mother was thrilled, yetconcerned. “Should we be counting our chickens so soon?” she had asked.

“The promotion’s a done deal. Sallinger gave me his word. And tocelebrate we’re all going out for hotdogs and shakes at the drive-in.”

The sight of seeing that car again made my stomach knot. In less than ayear my father will shove a piece of garden hose up its exhaust and gas himselfto death.

To add to the tragic record - we never reached the drive-in. The ’52Buick broke down on the way and had to be towed.

I could have warned them that it was going to happen, but obviously I hadto keep my mouth shut about it.

According to my father, it’s gonna cost him another packet to fix due tothe fact that it had been an as is deal.

It was rather strange riding in the car. Like going for a spin in areally old classic.

Something I should have mentioned a long time ago is how much I love tojust stand on street corners and watch all the (old model) cars driving by. Ipersonally believe that the late fifties and early sixties was the era of thegreatest automobiles in history. Maybe they weren’t the fastest, but for justplain classy looks and style nothing will ever come close again.

This brings to mind the fact that none of the cars have central locking,ABS brakes and even though it was patented in 1951 already, we won’t see anysubstantial use of airbags until the seventies. One thing I’m not missing arecar alarms; I always found those irritating to say the least!!!