Buying a car has changed over the years. No longer do you have to go
from car lot to car lot to find that perfect car. No more spending your
week-ends car shopping. Years ago car shopping was a big thing. Having a
car wasn't as casual or as necessary as it is today. People in town
walked or took the bus.
Although it is true that bigger
vehicles consume more fuel, it doesn't mean they are less fuel
efficient. Fuel efficiency is getting the most amount of energy from
every amount of fuel that enters the engine. It means that the vehicle
is able to make full use of the fuel it gets.
She remembered the day her son Teddie had
brought Charlie home. They'd just moved into an apartment after selling
the house he'd been born in. She'd done it for the worst reason of all,
to try to hang on to a new man she'd just met and with whom her son had,
at best, a nervous relationship. It seemed as though she just couldn't
stop making mistakes, and now this. She remembered her last days in the
house, how she'd walked out and never looked back and how she hadn't
been able to drive by it for the longest time, long after the man had
gone, long after Charlie had died and been reborn at least a dozen more
times.
straight
from the source
Slowly they drive a little further up the road, find an area along the
road side, they can turn around the truck; --cliffs being on one side
and an embankment on the other that lead down to the lake itself. As
they make their turn, they straighten out the wheel, press hard on the
gas and get the hell going to the strangers house. The dark
figure standing, staring by the street, is noticed by the two men in the
front seat of the truck, they stare but keep going, --trees blowing to
his right and left, the waves of the Great Lake of Superior, makes a
humming sound, and everything else, as if you were in the middle of a
hurricane, the stranger stands erect yet, never moving. He sees the eyes
of the passenger in the Ford-truck, a small figure, a man of about
forty, the driver calls him Skip, and he hears that. The taller man at
the wheel, his arms are solid, and frozen to the wheel, is called Amery,
for some reason you know he knows that.
There were three major car
manufacturers. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. Each manufacture had a
following. Arguments could erupt over which car was the best. A man's
Dodge pickup was a source of pride. Sunday morning the family would
dress in their best clothes and get into a Buick for the trip to church.
The Cadillac represented power and money while the Ford and Chevrolet
represented the working people. People that lived in the country had a
buy truck jack. It was a working
truck and on Saturday's the kids jumped in the back for a trip to
town. My
experiences at the Shadow Bar occurred more than forty years ago, but I
still wonder if I should have reported the incident when I returned to
Engineers Hill. The end of the story is
we were able to get the lawyer for Ford Motor Credit to accept a much
lesser amount because he was trying to get a default judgment on his
fees. That was illegal here in Florida, so with his hands in the cookie
jar, he just wanted to get it over rather than have his name placed in
front of the Florida Bar Assn. In October, the U.S. State Department released a the results of a
survey of 220 U.S. private companies which showed 15 percent of them
have postponed investments or expansion plans in Mexico due to the drug
violence now paralyzing that country.