Of Cars and Unions November 9, 2009
Posted by tobthebat in Car Guy Thoughts.Tags: automakers, capitalism, cars, Chrysler, Ford, gearhead, GM, Honda, Toyota, UAW, union
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For the past thirty years of my life I have been an industrial union worker, and for all that time and longer, I have been a gearhead. The last job I held before I started where I am now was with a Chrysler/Plymouth dealership nearby. While that dealer and the Plymouth marque are now both defunct, that year of my life was a rich learning experience.
To work at a place where your ongoing education of the changes in the new cars was a priority was a true gift. We were visited several times a year by the Chrysler factory representative, who would school us on procedures and special tools to be used on new models. The time before and after the formal class was more casual chatting, but it was a grand insight on the inner workings of the automotive world. These sessions sparked a thirst for car knowledge I have never quenched to this day.
When the opportunity came my way to be hired on to my present job, it was one of those things you cannot walk away from. At the young age of 20, the chance to sign on for a job that doubled my salary was a no-brainer, and even though I was laid off several times and recalled over the next four years, it still paid off in the long haul. Through all of those up and down times, I never stopped reading books and magazines dedicated to the automotive world.
Upon my being hired on my present job, I was offered admittance to the Teamsters Union, and I have been a member ever since. There have been many accusations levied against the union over the course of my career, not the least of which was association with organized crime. Anytime there are big dollars involved, corruption can take hold of people and carry them astray. This is true in many businesses as well as politics, which is why organized crime has never put all of its eggs into one basket. You can find many records of arrest and convictions of union officials over the years, but also in many other places as well.
On the whole, I do not believe that all unions are corrupt any more than I believe every police officer I see is on the take. What I do know is that through negotiations, the union has held the company in check and protected the jobs of many people. There have still been sacrifices made over the years,and we have assumed more of our benefit costs to keep business viable and competitive. In the end, we have seen how companies will treat their own without compassion, and replace older,more experienced workers with younger butt-kissers,so it isn’t just unions who shield less than stellar employees.
All told, after 30 plus years of union exposure and automotive immersion, I think these are topics I have a bit of knowledge about and can speak of with a level of conviction.
Back to the subject at hand, which would be the ongoing battle between the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the domestic auto giants. Glenn Beck made the statement that if unions were so great, why wasn’t Detroit like Disneyworld? The truth of the matter is that at one time it was exactly that, but one only has to take a ride along Lakeshore Drive to see that the money still hasn’t left town.
The five villages of Grosse Pointe are the most wealthy and highly valued real estate anywhere in the area. We recently visited Detroit on vacation and chatting with local residents proved very enlightening. The entire stretch of Lake St Clair in Grosse Pointe is bordered with gated parks and yacht clubs with no public access. Four of the villages of Grosse Pointe have ownership of these places, and even they don’t want members of the land locked portion of Grosse Pointe to intrude. The homes in this area would have to be called estates since “houses” would be far too much of an understatement. So “Disneyland” would depend mostly on your point of view.
I have traveled over much of the northeast and northern parts of the Midwest, and the number of abandoned industrial sites is shocking. There have been many types of businesses that owned them and I doubt they were all shut down by unions. Some were replaced in other areas, while others outlived their usefulness. Industrial plants have a lifespan like any other facility,perhaps more so since their equipment will become antiquated over time. This is compounded in the auto industry since model and platform changes can sometimes require retooling so immense that constructing a new location is more cost-effective,especially if the old plant is already over twenty years old.
Ford, General Motors and Chrysler all still have their headquarters here in Detroit, or at least one of its suburbs, and all three still operate multiple plants in the area. Ford has weathered the recent financial downturn without the benefit of bailout funds. Chrysler suffered at the hands of its breakup with Daimler-Benz, who had retooled several of its plants to build V8 powered,rear wheel drive vehicles as well as trucks and sport utilities. When Daimler-Benz pulled out of their partnership, they were suddenly saddled with massive debt and few new products in the pipeline. Cerberus Management then took over, and they were by their own admission,”not car people”. Cerberus set forward on a plan to liquidate as many asset funds as possible in an effort to buy out GMAC, or General Motors financial arm. Their first order of business was to dump any new products, which weren’t numerous to begin with, and basically wait for the company to fail. When the price of gas spiked and then the economy collapsed, it looked as though they might get their wish, but General Motors went south as well, a victim of its own poor planning.
GM has long claimed that high union wages were the bane of their business, but there is a deeper story. On the one hand,GM was incredibly top-heavy with layers of management,mostly as a result of the many divisions they encompassed. Over time the various divisions were competing against themselves instead of having distinct identities. They also made the same short-sighted mistake of pouring too many of their resources into trucks and SUVs,even going so far as to idle car plants and retool them for trucks. The major example of this was when they killed off the Caprice sedan, which they made large fleet sales to police and municipal facilities, and replaced it with Tahoe SUVs. GM’s effort to try and get police departments to buy Tahoes instead was ill-fated and most all of that business was lost to Ford.
I was given an industrial business mini-course on improved efficiency called Six-Sigma, in this course we identified things that could be eliminated or reduced to make our operation “leaner”. This course repeated over and over the benefits of a self-directed workforce, because while management was considered essential, it was also deemed “non-value added work”.
In the realm of automotive business, this equates to the fact that artists,designers, engineers and builders actually make the cars, while management decides what flies and what doesn’t. Time has proven their decisions are not always the right ones. In their defense, the same is true of any business, right down to the Mom and Pop operation where one bad decision can determine if they flourish or lock the doors.
In recent years GM claimed that rising medical costs for their union employees actually cost them more per car than sheet metal required for production. Negotiations followed and the UAW made concessions and ultimately took over responsibility for the workers pension fund. I have no doubt this was a huge issue since workers who have retired from my job have complained mightily about the rising cost of health insurance eating their pension checks.
Over ten years ago the UAW and the domestic auto makers lobbied Congress for tariffs on import cars that were flooding the marketplace. This seemed only fair since our cars were heavily taxed when shipped overseas, the resulting law made provision that if a foreign automaker wanted to sell cars here without tariff, then the cars must be at least assembled in the United States.
Today, Honda,Toyota,Subaru,Hyundai,BMW and Mercedes-Benz all have at least one plant operating in the United States, with Kia and VW in process to build.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) allowed goods to cross both the Canadian and Mexican borders without import tariff,and the domestic automakers jumped on this with both feet. Today there are almost as many “domestic” cars built in Canada and Mexico than in the US, while fully half of the foreign fleets are built here.
While its true that plants in either Canada or Mexico don’t have to deal with large health care costs for employees, how is it the foreign automakers are flourishing under domestic conditions? Some will instantly say it is because they are non-union; but why have they stayed that way? It certainly isn’t because the UAW hasn’t approached them, its more about the reasons the workers have rejected them.
UAW employees contracted to GM can earn a top pay of $73 an hour, which includes the cost of benefits, while the Honda USA workers have top pay of $65 an hour. This may seem like a sizable amount when you consider the number of employees involved, but then Honda pays its employees on average $6-8k bonuses each year, which puts their pay higher than the GM workers. Is it any wonder they don’t want the UAW on board?
Now in fairness, none of the foreign plants have been up and running long enough to have employee turnover to retirement like GM is experiencing, but now that the UAW has assumed control of that it should be on off the table issue. There is another issue of larger proportion to be addressed.
General Motors average Executive pay is 17 million dollars, NOT just the CEO, while by contrast Honda’s entire Executive board made almost 22 million dollars COMBINED. This is also part of the reason their plant workers get bonuses,everyone gets bonus money for making goals. These scale up per level, but the entire company benefits from a job well done. In turn, everyone makes sacrifices when things get tight. Toyota had to idle its Tundra plant for 14 weeks for inventory control,and it was done so without revolt,especially since they laid no one off. Instead they are using the time for training and skills improvement. So is it any wonder their workers feel no need for union support? This is a far cry from shuttering entire facilities and laying off thousands. At least the foreign automakers are making the effort to live and die as a team by putting the company first, and doing so by example. To compound this disparity, domestic builders break their exec salaries out of their cost equation while the foreign companies include their in. Shouldn’t this be giving the domestic auto companies an edge? Not really, since the compensation payout to execs still takes funds away from development of future technologies and products.
The actions of Honda and Toyota not only invoke a sense of unity and company loyalty, but provides more liquid cash flow for developing new products and not being at the mercy of the quarterly report. GM scoffed at Toyota when they put the Prius into production, saying they would wind up eating the car and it would sink like a rock. Lo and behold ten years later, not only has Prius production more than doubled, but it has become the household name for “hybrid/high mileage car”. Despite an 11 day shutdown in Japan, Toyota still has plans to move forward with construction of a plant to build Prius hybrids here in the United States. Toyota looked farther forward than what profited big in the short-term and never lost their world vision for the sake of the American market.
In retrospect is it any surprise the UAW would fight with GM over wages and benefits when their business practice is so far removed from their competition? The domestic automakers have been the recipient of numerous breaks from the Government, NAFTA, the stalling of CAFE standards, the exemption of trucks from CAFE, and yet they still cannot compete with domestic facilities who are making cars at higher standards. Foreign automakers who are actually paying their workers more overall.
I submit that “Disneyworld” is still in Detroit, and it resides in the boardrooms of those who made the decisions to run the ship aground for short-term profit. I personally think it takes a special kind of arrogance to knock off a 17 million dollar paycheck and then tell the workers who build your products they get too much. Your competitors are proving the flaws in your thinking right in your own backyard. Where did this whole twisted mentality come from that makes an executive believe they are worth that kind of money? While it might be true it took many years to rise to those positions, your counterparts at Honda and Toyota have as well. If your demands to your workers are to compete with them they why can’t you? If your company made big profits from huge sales, did you think you did that all on your own? Evidently someone must think so since CEO pay in the United States has risen 400% in the past ten years,far outstretching virtually any other country in the world.
In my opinion, this is the classic case of the American abuse of capitalism, which is pretty sad when the foreign car makers are playing the same game and showing the domestics how its done. I realize there are many details to this argument which vary from plant to plant per company. There are also disparities in multi-craft work between UAW and non-union, but I believe that people will bind together for a common cause if the terms are fair…and that has to come from both sides of the table.
This isn’t “Disneyworld” or “Fantasy Island”, this is the U.S.A. and we should be doing it better, we should be leading and setting the example, not getting our butts kicked at our own game.
“This is It” November 5, 2009
Posted by tobthebat in Uncategorized.Tags: man in the mirror, Michael Jackson, MJ, This is it
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My wife and I recently attended a showing of “Michael Jackson’s This is it”, which is a film put together from footage of his prep and rehearsals for the London shows that never came to pass. As basic a premise as this sounds, seeing the film was truly an insightful experience. Here was the “King of Pop” at his most human and open level, interacting with fellow stage performers, musicians and working staff as though each one was a dear member of his family.
Michael Jackson was always renowned as an intense stage performer, but he was never regarded as an actor. Given that assumption, I believe the cameras capture him at a candid level rarely seen before. His attention to detail about every aspect of this performance is one of genuine caring, and his expectation of work ethic and striving for perfection is done so by his own example.
Not only was he filled with emotion and anticipation about these shows, the interviews with his stage musicians and dancers conveyed a level being simply overjoyed to have the opportunity to work with him. These people shed tears of both awe and admiration over not simply being chosen for the job, but by being so gently directed by him and inspired to reach a level that they had never before achieved.
There was so much rumor and speculation surrounding his death, and if the idea of him performing again after so long was a good one. I think any one of us who is over the age of forty, much less fifty, can attest to a drop in endurance and ability that we once took for granted in our youth. While this film only constitutes two hours of over 150 hours of rehearsal footage shot, the glaring evidence is that the man still has the goods. From his signature dancing style to his wide vocal range, the sights and sounds that garnered him the title “King of Pop” was there for all to see. His stage crew and dancers when not in the current numbers were not off in other locations, they were his mesmerized and cheering audience.
The comparisons between Michael Jackson and Elvis have been made on more than one occasion. They both blossomed early,rocketed to super-stardom and were silenced at a young age. Many degrading things were said about Jackson and his behavior, especially regarding the time he spent with children. After seeing this film it becomes almost impossible to imagine this man ever bringing himself to do anything of harm to a child. There was more of a sense that this was a child in fifty year old body. His exuberance and energy abounded, and his level of acceptance mirrored the innocence a child would display. Always kind, caring and understanding of everyone around him, Michael exuded the kind of universal love that is far too rare in mankind as a whole these days.
Seeing this film not only brings back memories of his glory days (if you remember those) but is also a painful reminder that this stunning talent of a man and father is now gone forever.
The film closes with his performance of “Man in the Mirror”, which is a message that not only this country, but the entire world could use more of.
God Bless You MJ, you shall be sorely missed.
Hiking the Concrete Jungle October 17, 2009
Posted by tobthebat in Uncategorized.Tags: Manhattan, staten island, New York, the big apple, Lady Liberty, ferry, sneakers, central park, rockefeller center, empire state building, chrysler building, subway, the met, uss intrepid, times square, the highline
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The Big Apple, the city that never sleeps, The City as it is referred to by the dwellers of the surrounding boroughs, all are synonyms for the concrete jungle know as Manhattan. The iconic skyline is probably the most well known city scape in the world and it is the very heart of New York City. More than that, it is a city like no other that I have visited in this entire country.
Sometimes it seems ironic that a car guy like myself could have such passion for place where I will not dare take my car. This is one location where I choose my best sneakers over my wheels every single time, and its a place I dearly love but it didn’t start that way.
My very first memory was a vivid and frightening experience provided by my father. One year when we were on vacation he decided to “treat us” by driving through Manhattan so we could see New York,New York up close.
As I sat in the middle of the front seat, barely able to see over the dash, I got plenty of views of buildings reaching for the sky. I also had never seen other cars quite so close to the family sedan before as the sounds of honking horns, sirens and my grandmother gasping and praying out loud in the back seat filled the air.
When you combine this experience from a young and impressionable mind with news reports over the years of shootings and riots, it becomes easier to see why you would never wish to return to such a place.
Many years later a strange sequence of events happened. I was recently divorced and testing the waters of the then new concept of online dating. I began exchanging emails with a lively woman from Staten Island who would later become my wife. During our exchange of information my son’s high school band class took a trip to New Jersey for a competition. This same trip included a sightseeing bus tour of Manhattan as a treat for the kids. This was one of those deals where you ride around in traffic as a tour guide points out landmarks and various other notable things as you stare out the windows. At one point you were let off the bus for one hour so you could shop for souvenirs and then you piled back on for the ride back to the hotel.
Unfortunately this is how most people get to see Manhattan, and while it offers a certain value it barely grazes the surface of this incredible metropolis. The first time my future wife carried me over to “The City” it was a dizzying adventure.
This began with a ferry boat ride across New York harbor, which cruises right by the Statue of Liberty. She had been by the national landmark so many times in her life that it might as well had been a light post. Once docked on the Manhattan side, an ocean wave of human bodies moves off the boat and into the streets beyond. Unlike any kind of event crowd, here the flow of moving humans is like a river moving into every available tributary. Some in small groups, others obviously alone, some hurrying about while others drift with the tide. Never before had I been in such a setting where so many people were not all heading for one particular place.
Moving down the stairs and into the concrete and steel world of the subway system is like some twisted version of “Fantastic Voyage”. The map on the walls at every subway station resembles something out of medical book depicting the circulatory system, and in effect that’s exactly what this maze of tunnels does. Like the rhythmic beating of the heart, the trains come and go virtually every five minutes. They draw in this human blood stream and move them swiftly through the city veins and deposit them along the way.
If you can ever make sense of the map and read the signs in the stations below, the subway is hands down the fastest way to move around Manhattan, which is the very reason so many people use it. Getting your bearings once you return to the street level is whole other ball of wax, but street signs are abundant as well as various landmark buildings to help your mental compass.
Now is when the adventure really begins. When you walk Manhattan it takes on a very different look and feel. Some places are crowded and hectic while others are leisurely and serene. One such haven is Central Park,this 843 acre gemstone encompasses several lakes and ponds,an ice skating rink,extensive walking,cycling and running tracks,an impressive zoo and an outdoor theater. There is no vehicle traffic inside the park and this alone makes a striking difference in its feel and sound. Once inside it is quite easy to forget that you are at the heart of the most populated urban environment in the country. Trees that shroud the surrounding buildings are almost akin to a castle wall while the island’s native granite rock still protrudes above ground in many locations. You can easily spend all day here and still not cover it all, and this doesn’t even include the activities or temporary exhibits that are often found during the various seasons.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,or “The Met” as it is affectionately called, sits on the east side of Central Park. This quarter mile long,two million square foot landmark is one of the largest art galleries in the world. The Roman, Greek and Egyptian artifacts alone can hold your gaze for hours but even they are barely a highlight reel to the bevy of treasures held within these walls. Paintings,sculptures,carvings and even weapons and suits of armor grace the many rooms of this daunting facility. This is another of those locations where time melts away with startling speed and before you know it the attendants are telling you its closing time. Grab yourself a map at the front desk, believe me you will need it, if for no other reason than to find the restroom.
I could go on for pages about the individual wonders to be found in Manhattan, but there are so many museums and sights that it would fill a book. (I’m sure there are many). Each iconic building has a story and look all its own. The observation decks of the Empire State building and Rockefeller Center offer breath taking views from heights where eagles dare,and give you some idea of the true scale of the island itself. While these scenic floors offer their very own perspective, the lobbies and foyers of many of the buildings are works of art all to themselves. The lobby of the Chrysler Building has some of the most stunning inlaid woodwork I have ever seen as well as dazzling mural artwork adorning its walls and ceilings.
Hiking the broad and ever present sidewalks of The City are where its hidden treasures lie waiting to be discovered. Most any other city I have ever visited has a unique downtown or historic downtown district. These areas usually comprise a few streets or a couple of square miles at most. Manhattan is almost 23 square miles all to itself, and while much of that is residential, its inner communities all have their sights to see.
In no other city have I ever seen such a diverse collection of architecture and styles all in one place. The old and the new, the modern and traditional, the crumbling and the construction all live and breathe right alongside one another as normal and commonplace. As you trek through each of these areas it can be akin to crossing the borders of countries. From SoHo to Little Italy to Chinatown is just one small path of many that can be taken to soak in the coexisting cultures of this amazing and thriving urban wonder. The Garment District, The Diamond District,The Flower District, The Valley of Heroes, The USS Intrepid,The South Seaport, The Brooklyn Bridge, the various cathedrals and churches,Broadway and Times Square, the list goes on as around every corner is another wonder to behold.
The squares and parks that dot the grids of streets and skyscrapers are like an oasis, just when you think you’ve had enough concrete and steel, right around the next block are the trees and greenery and the serenity of a simple park bench. A recent addition to the various parks is a fascinating example of how Manhattan continually reinvents itself. There is an abandoned elevated railway the runs down the lower west side known as “The Highline”, where rail cars used to bring food goods directly to factories and warehouses in the meatpacking district.
The last rail car rolled off the Highline in 1980 and in 2005, CSX donated the structure to the City of New York for use as a public space. The first section of the unique renovation recently opened to public use just this year and it is an incredible transformation. In many places the rails have been preserved as part of the overall feel, but the plants and flowers that line the artistic concrete walkways add a warm and earthy charm. Above the horns and the traffic, The Highline offers abundant sitting areas with views of the city that might otherwise go unseen, like the huge wooden chaise lounge chairs that overlook Chelsea Park and the Hudson river. There is still another section under renovation to the north up to 30th street and I cant wait to see what it will offer when completed.
Back down on the street level is another unique Manhattan experience, and that is quelling your hunger. Beneath the towering skyscrapers, the ground floor of each building are the windows of retail business and restaurants. Here is a place where the big chain, cookie cutter eateries fight for their lives as the locally owned cafes and delis offer up such a diversity of cultural and ethnic menus that it would take an encyclopedia to reference them all. The majority of these places put the chef on display with your choices prepared right before your eyes, and the experience is one to be savored.
Fresh baked pastrami sliced by hand,pizza dough kneaded and tossed,steak and chicken grilled with peppers and onions,stir fried veggies,pasta hung and cheese grated are all on display while the various aromas vie for your attentions. While seating in many of these places is limited, they each possess their own personality and charm. Some are rich with history while others dazzle you with style or the simplistic display of their various wares. Indoors or on the sidewalk, mealtime in Manhattan need never be boring or mundane.
To that end, hiking the concrete jungle of Manhattan is an adventure that is also never boring or mundane. With so many places and things to see and experience, both seasonal and everyday, “The Big Apple” is the one vacation spot I have yet to tire of going to. Mostly because it is alive and constantly evolving, the things that stay are very good things and the ones that change are always interesting to see.
Raise your torch high Lady Liberty, for you herald a gateway to one of the most uniquely American cities in this great land. Let your light shine on her always for she is vibrant and beautiful just like you…and it is always thrilling to see you again, for you are truly the apple of my eye. I may rumble away into the night but I always feel you tugging on my heart to return, beckoning me to park my wheels and don my backpack once again. You welcome me with your ever present soft gaze, back to your city who like you,never sleeps.
‘Til I hike your streets once again, I love you, New York.
-Timmy
Hamish My Boy… October 15, 2009
Posted by tobthebat in cats.Tags: pets, cat, fur, Hamish, memorial, happiness, fuzzy, angel, tribute
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“Hamish my boy”
This weekend past has been one filled with mixed emotions. We travelled to New Jersey for a memorial to my wife’s cousin Vivienne, even though almost everyone referred to her as “Aunt Viv”. I had the rare and honored pleasure to meet this woman twice, once for lunch with my then bride-to-be and again at our wedding reception.
Vivienne was a rare gift to this Earth as she was equipped with a happiness mechanism that should surely be cloned. She watched her two sons go off to Vietnam and return home whole, maybe any positive attitude that could weather such a storm was a virtual steamroller for whatever life could dish out. This was a woman that was far more than “the glass is half full”, she was more like “My glass is spilling over, let me fill yours as well.” She also was able to cast away peoples faults and gaze light into their hearts like no one I have ever met. To say that she will be sorely missed is gross understatement to say the least.
In the shadow of this weekend of grieving and remembering all that was bright and happy about Vivienne, we returned home to find we had lost a loved one of our own.
“Hamish the Red”
“Hamish the boy”
“Hamish the bad”
“I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way”
“Oh Ye of little brain and so much hair”
“Fuzz Butt”
“Get down from where you do not belong”
“Skimbleshanks“
All of the above were synonyms that were used for the incredibly furry, bushy tailed, hair-between-his-toes, clown of the house known as Hamish.
I chose his name from the character in the movie “Braveheart“. Hamish (Hay-mish) was William Wallace’s faithful companion, always beside him, making him laugh and loyal to his last breath. Our Hamish might not have been brave, in fact the poor boy was frightened by many things but he was without a doubt loyal and loving to a fault.
It was absolutely impossible for me to move from room to room anywhere in the house without him tagging along or running ahead in anticipation. No matter the time of day or night, leaving the bedroom guaranteed a fuzzy tail brushing about your ankles within minutes. These antics sometimes became annoying, since having the back of your calves tickled when you’ve just gotten up to an alarm clock doesn’t always make you smile with glee.
There were many other times though that it was adorable to have him about. Sitting on the sofa late at night was “our time”, he would get rubbed generously, purr like a motorboat and shed copious amounts of hair. Any towel or blanket was considered a new bed to be pawed and slept on. Any crumbs spilled onto my shirt were goodies to be consumed and my forearm seemingly always needed much cleaning…even if he had to hold on by his claws.
Lying down and trying to nap on the sofa was whole other game. First your face must be suitably pawed at, then the entire sofa must be patrolled for the best possible spots. Once this circuit was completed three or four times he would finally settle on the sofa back, on my hip or behind the bend of my knees.
If he wasn’t interested in napping then his chair in front of the den window gave him a looking glass on the world outside. This was obviously much more enthralling to watch than to actually venture out into since moving beyond the back door was an adventure in terror. Hamish did however keep a keen interest in plants, christmas trees,silk flowers and dead leaves at the back door were high on his list. He even helped keep a natural progression for silk flower arrangement we once had on the dining table. After giving the petals a thorough licking, they would fall open as if the plant were wilting. Once they would dry then they would return to the original fresh look only to “killed” by him repeatedly.
Sometimes we never truly appreciate the things we have until they are gone. Even as I sit now at my keyboard, the small stool to my right is empty which was his regular perch for my late night or early morning computer sessions. If he wasn’t on the stool he would be underfoot or even more odd, draped over the backrest of my office chair. This particular spot had its distractions as he would swipe his tail (which was impossible for him to keep still) and bat me on the side of the head, curling enough on the end to tag me in the eye.
You see Hamish was an unabashed glutton for attention (if you hadn’t already figured that out). Preparing to leave for work would have him bouncing between dining chairs so that he could reach out and swat at your clothes. He even occasionally stuck his head in through the bathroom door and would look up as if to say “Did I come at bad time?…no rubbing now?…I guess not.”
He was also very sure that putting on socks and shoes required his close supervision,you see it works so much better when he would lay across my toes. Clawing at my laces was considered game time.
I had a puppy when I was a child but she stayed with my Mom after I got married. My ex-wife had many cats that either wandered off or passed away during our time together. Both of my children and my step daughter have lost a cat near and dear to them. I mourned and felt pain for all of them, but never anything like last night.
To walk in and find this lively and easily spooked feline stretched out in the den floor as if he were asleep was bizarre in itself. I turned the light on and not even a twitch. I drew closer and his eyes were wide open, mouth closed and feet gently crossed as if he meant to lay down anyway. One touch told me he was gone.
Getting ready for work this morning felt empty beyond measure, as did the rest of the day as I tried to muse over what I would write on this page. My wife’s blog entry was wonderful and tells of how he came to be with us in the beginning. Please read her entry here
He came to us so very frail and had just survived a fight for his life. Cast out into the freezing cold, I have little doubt someone stuffed him into garbage bag at some point, since pulling out any plastic bag made him bolt for cover like a rocket. I’d love to think that coming to live with us was a reward for living through that ordeal. Hamish brought such laughter and love into our house, more so now than I ever truly realized before.
I always thought when we got him that he would grow old and fat, and eventually I would have to help him onto the sofa. I also thought that when the end came we would be side by side but as the old saying goes, “The flame that burns twice as bright only burns half as long”
The bright orange glow of Hamish has been forever burned into our hearts and our lives. His bright copper eyes lit us up with joy as he never failed to entertain and he was never so bad that he could not be instantly forgiven for whatever mischief he had wrought.
Like Aunt Viv, Hamish was forever ready to be happy, never growling in anger or hissing in distaste. Maybe everyday he spent with us was like a gift, a second chance at life for him and an education in love for us. I thank God for helping him survive, for bringing him to us and for enriching our lives. I don’t know why He saw fit to take him from us,but I know he no longer suffers from any of the fears that would send him running behind the bed or the water heater.
There is a statue on my den shelf that I gave to my wife called “The Good Cat”. This feline sits in a regal stance and is graced with angel wings, and I will never look at this statue the same again. If my Hamish is given angel wings they will most certainly shed fur. I have made many jokes at his expense but think he knew every time I held him and stroked his bushy tail, how very much I loved him…and how very much I miss him now.
I know the spirit of Hamish lives on, and I have laid his still mortal body to rest under his favorite window, marked with a garden sculpture donated by Trish.
The sculpture is a cat
with his head through the bottom of a birdbath, wearing his swimming goggles. A fitting tribute to a cat who knew how to get into trouble but was far too lovable to stay there.
There is a belief that when we pass from this life that many loved ones gone before us are there to welcome you. When that time comes for me I know there will be those I will be very happy to see, but I will also be looking forward to something fuzzy rubbing about my ankles.
Godspeed Hamish my boy…until we meet again.
Down the Rabbit Hole September 24, 2009
Posted by tobthebat in cats.Tags: alice in wonderland, cats, feline, looking glass, rabbit hole
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Tuesday night was somewhat traumatic at our house. We had been out on one of our dinner-and-a-movie dates and came back home to find the house feeling quite stuffy and stale smelling. It seems the heat pump/central air was in its little “happy zone” between its heat and cooling limit temps where it simply does nothing. So we decided to open some windows and let the cool autumn breeze inside.
Both of our cats, Hamish and Tatiana are strictly indoor creatures. They have occasionally been taken outside with a harness for some brushing and grooming, which in the case of Hamish, provides many local birds with downy soft fluff to add to their nests. I have said many times before that I am stunned as to why he isn’t bald by this point. The amount of hair he loses during one of these sessions would seem to be able to fill a feather pillow. All that aside, neither of them make any sort of effort to try and get outside. If anything opening a door is usually enough to make then scamper for their lives.
Earlier that night while at the movie theater, we saw a preview for the latest rendition of “Alice in Wonderland”. I mention this because what happened later must have been strikingly familiar. My wife had taken her book to bed and I had settled down on the den sofa to take in a movie. I was probably half way through when I suddenly heard a quick but furious amount of scratching, followed by some clunking and rattling that could be taken for “some feline has just knocked some thing off a table where they don’t belong.”
I got up to investigate and found everything pretty much where it should be, save for the screen in the dining room window. A knocked open screen late at night can be cause for alarm but if a vandal or other person had been at fault their presence would have been evident by now. This however was more bizarre in that one corner was kicked out, directly above the recycle bin that sits on the deck outside. Suddenly all the sounds I had heard began to fall into place and an accident reconstruction formed.
Cat lays in window sill, cat stretches while still lying down, cat’s back feet push screen loose on the bottom, cat with all four feet in stretch mode has a hold on nothing…end result, cat falls in recycle bin under said window. Now suddenly OUTSIDE, with no clue to dark surroundings and lying in bed of plastic bottles and empty tuna cans, cat absolutely freaks out and runs he knows not where.
Hamish has fallen down the rabbit hole.
All of the usual hiding places are not where they were, as a matter of fact, NOTHING is where it was! There are no doors!… no furniture!…no bathroom cabinets! What the blazes is this green stuff that doesn’t smell like my carpet! This part is hard, this part is soft, over there is bright, RUN!…no wait, that isn’t right either…go the other WAY!
I can only imagine that this might be the case since the last time he was taken out onto the deck he ran all of three feet and cowered under the gas grill. The same grill is still sitting there by the way but with a green vinyl cover over it, which in the dark must have been mistaken for a draped elephant. Who can speculate at what he thought the cars in the driveway were.
We spent roughly the next half hour outside with flashlights, calling out names and shaking dry food containers. You know, all the silly things humans do when we actually think a cat will ever listen. This search was fruitless and we reluctantly gave up figuring he was either hiding inside the house better than he ever had or he would show up howling his lungs out an hour after we went to bed.
I have to give credit to Tatiana at this point for some smart feline tactics (write this day down) After my wife retired back to bed and I returned to the movie to finish up, Tatiana proceeded to park herself in the living room floor. She then commenced a slow, painful series of cries and moans that would make one think she was being put to slow death. This continued relentlessly for nearly an hour and it seemed foolish for me to rant at her about it since she obviously missed having Hamish to smack around late at night. Being the brilliant male cat that he is, he keeps coming back for more…the furry poster child in the “glutton for punishment” category.
I finally turned off the television and prepared to retire myself thinking “how on Earth will I ever get to sleep with this lost cat lament going like a broken record in the other room?”
However once I shut all the den electronics off, in between Tatiana’s death throes, I heard a faint “meow” come from outside. Of course it couldn’t possibly be as easy as opening the back door and there the boy would be sitting. Oh no, coming on the deck would be far too logical, we must go on the hunt once more.
Back outside once more in pajamas and slippers, with my flashlight scanning the area, first close by and then off into the neighbors yards like some kind of overage peeping tom at 1 am. I continued out to the street, fearing the worst but hoping for better when I heard the sound once again. I turned my light back towards the house and swept the flower beds along the front and there reflected a pair of eyes. I kept the light fixed as I walked towards the reflections to see if it actually was Hamish. Once I was within about ten feet I could tell it was indeed the fuzzy adventurer but fear was in overdrive at this point and he bolted once again.
Then it occurred to me that in the dark with a flashlight bearing down I must have appeared like some version of the Cyclops giant, so I doused the light and he crouched down into a ball and howled like a bear in a steel trap. I picked him up and gave him the quick once over to be sure he wasn’t actually injured and the headed for the back door. I made this walk with some reserve since his head seemed to be mounted on a swivel and he was looking wildly around in all directions. I kept waiting for him to freak out at any second and slash my chest and shoulders open as he clawed to get away, but he finally settled down enough to make it inside.
Either way it seems I still got little to no sleep since Hamish spent the next two hours frantically patrolling the house and furniture. I guess he wanted to make sure there were no more rabbit holes or looking glasses to fall out of. I finally fell asleep on the sofa and I woke to find him comfortably ensconced on his blanket in the chair. I guess it had been an over eventful night for both of us.
I give the poor creature a hard time for his repeated acts of mindless stupidity, but the fact remains that despite all his shortcomings he is entertaining. That combined with the two features I suspect have saved cats as a species, they are furry and cute and he over-excels in both those areas…especially the furry part.
Tatiana has reverted to her once quiet self, if Hamish serves no other purpose but to quell that wake-the vampires wail of hers them he is most welcome here forever.
The Incredible Chrysler Convertible September 14, 2009
Posted by tobthebat in Car Guy Thoughts.Tags: hemi, Chrysler, LeMans, Firepower, Sebring, convertible, Tucker, Thunderbolt, Corvette, GT, Fiat, Walter P. Chrysler Museum
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I am presently the proud owner of a 2008 Chrysler Sebring convertible, a car that I grow more fond of everyday for a variety of reasons. I could ramble on for paragraphs about all the little reasons why but that isn’t my inspiration today.
My wife and I recently took a vacation and one of our stops was Detroit, Michigan. Being the consummate carguy that I am, a trip to the “Motor City” was inevitable at some point but I never expected to uncover my car’s storied ancestry.
The Walter P. Chrysler Museum is located on the grounds of the Chrysler Headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan, which is one of the many suburb communities of Detroit. This sprawling facility sits on 504 acres and includes a test track & proving grounds. The buildings themselves are over 5 million square feet total with enough parking area to shame an NFL stadium. The museum seems minuscule in the shadow of its automotive parent but great things can come in small packages.
I recommend the Chrysler museum for any gearhead but if you are a dedicated follower of the PentaStar, then this place is a gold mine. The main foyer is graced with concept cars while the first floor is early history. The second floor is filled with the development years most of us recall so well but the trip down the elevator to the “Boss’ Garage” is pure automotive candy.
Walter Chrysler was an innovator who was hired away from Willys (who he had just put back on their feet) to take over the ailing Maxwell-Chalmers automaker. Chrysler rolled out its first car in 1924 and it boasted an impressive list of features unheard of for a car of this price range. The 4 wheel hydraulic brakes were a first as well as an internally lighted instrument panel with an engine temperature gauge. The engine featured an air filter for its carburetor and internal pressure lubrication with an oil filter, both improvements that would give the engine greater durability. Yet it was the design of the engine itself that made it a harbinger of things to come, a high compression four liter, six cylinder engine that made more power than many of its larger competitors due to its semi-hemispherical cylinder head. Yes gearheads of the world you heard it right, this engine was the infancy of the legendary Hemi engines that would follow in the decades to come.
A scant four years later Chrysler put its car with its bold little engine to the ultimate test. The 24 Hours of LeMans had only been run for the first time in 1923, so the race itself was still new to the world but the automakers from all over the globe saw it as a crowning achievement even over the Grand Prix title of Europe. Chrysler entered four of its Model 72 roadsters in the 1928 event to take on the giants of the sporting car world. Bentley, Stutz and Aston Martin were all among the heavily favored cars to win, and all were vehicles that sold for as much as four times the price of the lowly Chrysler convertible.
The racecourse in 1928 was an unpaved, ten mile loop through the City of Le Mans and across the French countryside, but when the checkered flag dropped the winner was a Bentley, the Stutz was second and the incredible little Chrysler was third. Granted the distance between the winning car and the third place Chrysler was ten laps or about 100 miles, but Chrysler had proven to the world beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were here to stay.
As I stood there reading this information and gazing at the pale yellow roadster sitting in front of me, I could not help but be overcome with a swelling of pride in my Sebring outside in the parking lot. I had often wondered back in 1997 when the Sebring Convertible was introduced why they had chosen that particular namesake. I knew Sebring, Florida was the home to the storied 12 hours of Sebring endurance race, and that event was North America’s premier run-up to Le Mans. Yet here I was face to face with the grandaddy of all Chrysler convertibles, and a podium winner at the toughest automotive race in the world. Suddenly, Sebring seemed like a fitting homage to such a legendary ancestor.
While the modern day Sebring isn’t a performance giant by any means, and it doesn’t boast a Hemi powerplant, it has fulfilled the mission of a lot of value for its price. The Sebring convertible quickly became the darling of the rental car industry, thereby exposing more people to this little gem of a car than the showroom ever would alone. The Sebring has put the ability to own a nicely equipped,fun to drive convertible within the grasp of virtually class of people in the country. Even used examples that are now ten years old still fly off the car lots, purchased mostly by middle aged buyers which has spawned the term “The mid-life Chrysler”. So even many years after his passing, the cars that bear Walter Chryslers namesake are reaching the inner child in a great many of each year. I stand as a happily guilty example to this trend.
In the vein of offering innovation at an affordable price, I didn’t have to look very far in the museum to run across another amazing example. The 2008 model Sebring was the first car in its price range to offer a folding hardtop convertible. I knew Mercedes and other high end cars had this option for some years, and I certainly recall seeing a few examples of the old Ford Sunliner convertible at the Rods & Customs Show. Yet here in the concept car section of the museum I took in the sight of a sleek silver coupe, the 1941 Chrysler Thunderbolt. Only six of these beauties were ever built and its smooth aero design was penned by none other that Alex Tremulis, who went on to design the famed Tucker Torpedo in 1948. The one feature about the Thunderbolt that really struck my eye was that it was equipped with the first ever electrical powered retracting hardtop. So once again Chrysler has paid a fitting tribute to a past that has brought a history of firsts to the automotive world.
Chrysler has fallen on hard times of late and its last two partnerships have been less than stellar. Daimler-Benz pulling out when they did left Chrysler in bad straits and the Cerberus Group that bought in afterwards proved to be true to their namesake, the three-headed dog that guards the gates of hell. They were by their own admission “not car people”and certainly not worthy of holding the reigns of an automotive legend like Chrysler.
Chrysler’s latest partner however shows a good deal more promise. Fiat is the largest automaker in Italy and blankets such brands as Lancia, Maserati and Alfa Romeo. They also build aircraft and are spread across Europe, Asia and South America. Possibly with an infusion of Fiat’s help, we might see the return of a Chrysler to the Circuit De La Sarthe and the streets of LeMans. The Dodge Viper growled through Arnage and scorched the Mulsanne straights in 1996, but I have longed to see and hear the venerable rumble of the Hemi from a racing machine over the hard buzz of the Viper’s V-10.
Back in 2005, Chrysler tickled that fantasy with an incredibly sexy concept car called the “Firepower”. Based on the Viper chassis, the Firepower has all the class and style of the Corvette over the brutal,raw edges of the Viper. The SRT version of the new generation Hemi V8 bristled beneath its straked and vented hood. The Corvette has been the dominate force in GT class at LeMans for the past several years, proving that an American hot rod can run with Ferrari,Lamborghini and Aston Martin. How fabulous would it have been to see and hear the Hemi motivated Firepower challenge the world and stand on the podium once again. That would truly be a full circle achievement, and if the car came with a targa roof option, it could once again be the Chrysler convertible that took on the world. Alas the Firepower was simply a concept and I have read no further information that hints towards its production, but until the next “glory days” of Chrysler come to pass, I will drive my Sebring with a level of pride and an honored legacy to its incredible forefathers.
Long Live Chrysler, the Hemi engine and the passion that drives them both.
Timmy
Eight Years Later September 11, 2009
Posted by tobthebat in Uncategorized.Tags: 9/11, America, ground zero, Manhattan, staten island, world trade center
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Eight years ago, on September 10th, I had one of the most profound lunch dates of my lifetime. I was in New York City visiting my then fiance’ on my one weekend off a month. We had made the short hop over to New Jersey the day before to shop for wedding bands at this charming little Celtic place. We found a band that carried the Claddagh motif in a style she liked so that made it a very good day.
The following day, a Monday, I was to head back home to Virginia as I usually had to do but it was so lovely outside we decided to have lunch before I departed. We left her apartment on Staten Island and went down to Richmond Terrace to a little place she recommended called the Cargo Cafe. Being the artist that she is I’m quite sure she was drawn to this place by its decor. The outside of the building was done in a mural and many brightly colored paintings adorned the interior walls. The tables were all covered in plain white paper and each was supplied with small round container of crayons. As we doodled while we waited for our order she began to question me about how I had written so many poems to her since we had met, especially given the fact that I had never done so before meeting her. She handed me a crayon and prompted me to compose right there on the tabletop.
So I thought for moment and scribbled;
Lunch with my Hunny
On a lovely summer day
Down by the water
At the Cargo Cafe
Later that night after I had returned home I wrote a few more lines and completed the poem as I remembered the time we spent together. We gazed out the windows at the Manhattan skyline and she remarked about how she needed to bring her camera down to the boardwalk near the Ferry terminal and take some photographs of the city. Little did we know how soon all of that would come to pass but under very different circumstances.
I travelled home that day through some of the worst thunderstorms I had seen in some time. Lightning flashed and stuck the ground in vibrant bolts and the rain was torrential in places so needless to say I didn’t get home in record time. I made a late phone call to her to let her know I was fine at home and went to bed shortly after.
The next morning I arrived at work to find things in quite a mess since the storm had knocked out the power the night before. We got busy cleaning up and getting things going so when I got a free moment I slipped over to the cafeteria to grab my morning orange juice.
When I came back to my work area one of my co-workers told me a plane had struck the World Trade Center. Your first snap reaction was that some light aircraft had gotten off course in cloudy conditions and hit one of the buildings. This was easy for me to assume since I had been with Trish into Manhattan on several occasions when clouds were low and the upper floors of the Towers were hidden from view. I asked if was a small aircraft and the solemn response was that it was an airliner.
Another co-worker told me to go up to the 5th floor break room where a TV had been set up. I know my face had to reflect the dumbstruck feeling I had as I watched the news footage. The report was almost surreal as if this was some bad disaster film rolling before my eyes. A few moments later however the gritty reality set in as the news cameras captured the second plane blast into the other Tower. The rest of what happened that day is a well documented account of life,death and loss.
The next time I returned to New York, Lower Manhattan had been reopened to pedestrian traffic. We traveled over on the Ferry and couldn’t take our eyes off of the smoldering wound in the New York skyline. Those familiar landmarks so often looked on in amazement were simply gone. I was fortunate enough on a previous trip to stand in the shadow of these marvels of architecture. The elegance of these glass and steel giants understated what a monument of construction they truly were. The artistry of the stonework in the courtyard swirled around a central sculpture, a metallic globe known as “The Sphere”. Somehow this piece of artwork managed to survive the attacks and today stands in Battery Park, still damaged with dents and holes as a memorial to the events of that fateful day.
The Towers stood like sentinels in their majestic beauty, they even served as a reliable compass, whenever you came up to the street level from the subway it was very easy to look around and find the Trade Center and you instantly knew which way was downtown or uptown.
When we stepped off the Ferry on this day however things were very different. The usual busy traffic, the stream of taxi cabs, the blaring horns and the background noise of hundreds of people talking about their day was replaced by eerie silence. A misty rain was falling that day but every building, sidewalk and park fence wore a dull gray coating of thick soot and dust. The throngs of people leaving the ferry walked in quiet whispers as though they were walking in a cemetery, everyone headed for the same location.
The sidewalk leading down to One Liberty Plaza was filled with souls staring in silent disbelief, only the sobbing and gasps for breath could be heard in muffled tones. The arm of a huge crane lifted a basket filled with firefighters and rescue workers and swung out over the fallen giants to lower them down into the now exposed lower levels. These valiant servants looked like insects against the backdrop of twisted girders and the one remaining piece of the facade that still reached over five stories high. It was almost as though that one stalwart lace of steel stood like the heart of the New Yorkers that surrounded it as if to say;
“I have fallen but I will never stay down, even in the face of horror and tragedy I shall stand fast.”
Today “Ground Zero” looks like nothing more than a construction site and given the state of our economy it may well look that way for a long time to come. The two images burned forever into my memory will always be how symbolic the Towers were of The Big Apple herself and how in a city filled with every race,creed and walk of life, a city pointed to as an example of so much deemed undesirable, they proved the common good that is in every man and woman. They proved that people can overcome and set aside differences and they showed us what real heroism is made of.
When I hear people today make statements like “bomb them back to the stone age” in reference to our enemies abroad, I cannot imagine the horror some innocent citizen of that country must feel if they survive such an attack. This was one city block in downtown Manhattan, Heaven help what it must be like when whole cities are laid waste like this.
September 11th, 2001 proved what great potential this country has when it wants to, when it needs to, its just sad it seems to take such tragedy to get so many un-entrenched from rigid opinions. The eight years that have passed since then are sad evidence that we have made little progress in those areas.
I am glad on a personal level that I can remember Sept 10th and those happy moments that filled that day. I savor everyday since then as my life with Trish has been more that I could have asked for, since I believe she truly is the answer to my prayers. Yet as horrific and hurtful as the days and months that followed were,I relish that I was able to have such a close experience with these events as I did. I truly believe that they changed my life in ways that watching and reading could never have done. Seeing people on the streets and in subway stations crying out for those who were “missing”, the memorials of candles and pictures scattered in so many locations and the “thank you” gifts of flowers and food that was outside every firehouse was heartbreaking beyond measure. Yet in the midst of all this sorrow, you saw people hugging one another that were total strangers otherwise. You saw comfort and respect on level unparalleled than any I have ever known…and it is a feeling I wish could be there once again.
Maybe one day the people of this country will hold the Flag and each others hands with a greater purpose in mind. The purpose that America is only as great as we make it, and that idea is made of people and not material things. A land born of unity,”To form a more perfect union” and to find what brings us together instead of tearing us apart.
Let us not allow the souls lost that day and lives of the brave men and women of our Armed Forces that have been laid down since those events to be sacrificed in vain. The war against enemies of our nation will do little good if we cannot heal the wounds at home. I hope and pray we can find that way to make peace before its too late.
God Bless America.
My Bucket List September 6, 2009
Posted by tobthebat in Car Guy Thoughts.Tags: bonneville, bucket list, crazy horse.devils tower, daytona, grand canyon, Le Mans, mt rushmore, richard petty, skywalk, yellowstone
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Ever since the hit film “The Bucket List” ran its first trailer, this term has been flying around quite a bit. It isn’t like the concept of such a list is new, but now it has a popular new name.
This has also been followed up by various television shows such as “100 things to do before you die”. Not exactly a charming title but it makes its point nonetheless. Yet all of this kind of thing never really triggered much thought until after I turned 50 years old.
It seems like overnight your perspective on many things begins to change. This isn’t helped by the fact that every time you visit your doctor for whatever might be ailing you, his response is now prefaced by ” when you reach your age this becomes a risk factor”
Your optometrist is happy to jump on the bandwagon as well with “when you reach your age things just begin to deteriorate.” These are all very cheerful things for you to hear on regular basis as well as your loved ones throwing you a bash birthday party which boldly announces that you are officially “Over the Hill”.
To a great extent this is not far from the truth. I can only think of it as kind of an analogy where you have struggled climbing a mountain towards a destination for all of your life. You have slipped and fallen on occasion and had your share of skinned knees and elbows. You have watched others get a free ride to the top while some you have met along the way took daring risks and tumbled back down to where you started.
This day finally comes however and now you can actually see over the crest of the peak. Down in the valley below is this wondrous destination you have heard everyone speak of but until now it was just talk. Yet now the journey takes a very different turn, instead of you struggling and clawing to reach the top, the game plan now seems to be to keep from tripping or taking a bad step with the result being an ugly plunge down the rocky slope.
These thoughts are also compounded by those who always remind you (i.e. your insurance agent, your doctor, your co-workers) that you only have just so many years left to work before you either cant keep up anymore or the company you work for boots you out for cost savings. All ugly little reminders that the game has a few different rules you’ll be forced to deal with. Your experience up to now is still valuable but the landscape has changed and you must be wary.
I can see how this combination of things can bear down on some people and bring on the dreaded “mid-life crisis”. I don’t think I have suffered from that particular syndrome but I did go out and buy myself a “mid-life Chrysler”. A Sebring convertible to be more precise, so I suppose I am somewhat guilty in that regard.
Once I thought about this concept of a Bucket List a little more I began to classify some of my thoughts. I think any of us could come up with a list a mile long if money were no object, but when was the last time money wasn’t a factor in just about everything, so this list was no exception.
So I decided to go with three categories, reality, near reality and fantasy, with the latter encompassing all those “money as no object” kind of things.
In the reality department I must give a large portion of credit to my lovely wife. I was never really terribly enthralled by the concept of travel when I was younger despite the fact that my Father carried the family on vacation almost every year until he became disabled. Although I do still have some vivid memories of those trips, for the most part they felt like many hours of staring at the air conditioning vents of our old Dodge sedan since I wasn’t tall enough at the time to see over the dash very well.
While my kids were growing up every place we ever considered taking them was crazy expensive so most of those plans got dashed. We managed to make it to amusement parks like Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion and we took in the Smithsonian Museums in nearby Washington DC (those were free).
It wasn’t until I met my second wife online that I had ever driven farther than a few hours for my adult life. I had ridden on buses farther but never driven myself. I had no fear of it, I just never thought of it as affordable or doable. Yet there she was in New York City and here I was in little Colonial Heights, Virginia, it felt like it might as well be the moon.
We spilt the difference the first time we met but on the next try I wound up venturing all the way to New York. The trip was long and probably felt even more so since I was in unfamiliar territory but those factors would change as the months passed. I got to the place I was making the trek north about once a month and the six hours on average it took for me to complete the journey altered my perspective on distance a great deal.
Then she took me one year to meet her relatives in Connecticut which was an additional three hours north. Now I make this trip once a year on the Easter holiday so she can visit with her family and it has proven to be a trip I look forward to greatly each time we go.
All of this gets back to the vote of thanks I owe her for introducing me to the marvel of travel. I have learned that it need not be lavish or expensive, especially since there are just the two of us. We don’t go for the resorts or the glitz and glamour but more for the journey itself and destination that is decidedly different from the landscape of home. Some of the things we see are man made but most are the awesome beauty this country and this planet have to offer. I have found that even though she is an excellent photographer, that pictures can only try to capture the magnificent sights that are out there to be seen. So things that relate to travel and sights basically dominate my Bucket List.
My Father was a professional driver and he drove Greyhound buses for 18 years all over the east coast. He was struck down quite young in my opinion at only 51 years old. A two year battle with cancer made his last time here quite a struggle but he also confided in me many of things he wanted to do in his lifetime. Most of them he accomplished, visiting family, seeing the Blue Ridge Mountains in the color change of autumn and going back to the places of his youth in North Carolina. The one thing He told me he wished he could have done long ago was to drive a cross country trip. He said he had never been west of the Mississippi River and wondered what the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains were like.
This December I turn 51 years old myself and I have found that many of the things I have left on my list to see are out west, so a cross country trip has been on my mind for the past few years. Partly it would be a vicarious honor to the man who taught me about cars and driving even if it was against my will in the beginning. How ironic it seems sometimes how the things he force fed me as a child are the things that are my passions in my adult years. I have been to Texas twice, so crossing the Mississippi has been done but there is still much left to accomplish.
So the things that could be taken in on this “Lap of America” are…
The Gateway Arch in St Louis or the “Gateway to the West” as it is also known is the tallest monument in the United States and opened to the public in 1965 (I was seven years old then)
Rocky Mountain National Park, which boasts the highest paved road in the country, Trail Ridge Road. This two lane strip of asphalt not only winds it way through the park but also passes through several ecosystems, crosses the great Continental Divide and carries you to a high altitude tundra not unlike arctic Canada and Alaska. The road peaks at an astounding 12,183 feet of elevation where you can actually see into the State of Wyoming. This road is a vista of superlatives of both wildlife and the stunning beauty of this planet we call home.
Salt Lake City, Utah… This city carved out of the high desert by a handful of Latter Day Saint (or Mormon) pioneers is now a flourishing oasis. The centerpiece of this desert jewel is Temple Square where these same pioneers cut stone and erected the Salt Lake Temple. Considering the tools and equipment they had at their disposal, the construction of this exquisite gem of architecture cost them untold man hours along with generous portion of sweat and blood. The end result is a truly worthy House of God. While certainly not as new or modern in design as the equally beautiful Washington DC Temple, the Salt Lake Temple represents the dedication and faith of a people and what they can accomplish.
Adjacent to the Temple is the Tabernacle where the famed Mormon Tabernacle Choir performs and houses the enormous Tabernacle Organ. The building itself was a marvel of its time with its domed ceiling spanning over 150 feet without center supports.
Salt Lake City is also home to the Family History Center which houses the genealogical records of over 2 billion deceased. Since my wife is a bit of a family history buff, I’m sure this would be a welcome stop. Any place I get to carry her that she enjoys will always be on my list.
The Bonneville Salt Flats…this marvel of nature stretches out across 159 square miles west of the Great Salt Lake. The surface of hard salt is inhospitable to even the smallest of plant life. The wind sweeps the surface so flat that it lies with the curvature of the Earth. This desolate expanse is also a kind of Gearhead Mecca, where each summer men and their machines flock to the salt to find the limits of speed. The salt was first used for a speed run in 1914 and later Sir Malcom Campbell became the first man to surpass the 300mph mark. Legendary names like Craig Breedlove, Art Arfons and Gary Gabelich drove jet powered vehicles here to aircraft like speeds of over 600mph. “The Salt” is hallowed ground for any car guy, to be able to stand in the places where these daring souls reached for the outer limits would be incredible. Bonneville is the last outpost where just a man and his creation can come with no corporate sponsors and shoot for the record books. How fitting that this vast expanse of nature is the most perfect raceway over anything man has ever constructed.
The Grand Canyon…there is probably very little explanation needed for this miracle and wonder of the Earth. There is an old saying that The Grand Canyon is the one sight people travel to see that never disappoints. Different seasons and even the times of day have huge effect on how the canyon appears and recently a new attraction has been added. The Grand Canyon Skywalk, constructed on the west rim on the Hualapai Indian reservation, this architectural creation is a glass floor bridge that extends in a giant “U” shape 70 feet out over the Canyon wall. This stunning and breath taking point of view places you 4000 feet above the canyon floor below. Feel the wind and watch the eagles soar in a vantage point like no other above the greatest natural creation on Earth.
Las Vegas…my attraction to Vegas is a limited one since I really have no interest in gaming in the casinos. I would love to drive the Strip at night and take in the lights and see the incredible over-the-top hotels that have been built there. Every November also brings the Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association or SEMA show to the convention center. SEMA is the Super Bowl of the latest aftermarket parts made available for the car world and the showcase of these parts are done so with some of the premier names of the custom car building arena. Basically its the worlds biggest toy store for Gearheads with doors open once every year.
Farther north is “Little Vegas” or Reno, Nevada where for one week in late summer the city plays host to “Hot August Nights”. This week long auto show brings rods,customs and muscle cars from all over the country. Casino parking lots become car shows each day and the main street becomes the nightly cruise to show off all that hardware.
Evergreen Aviation Museum…This aircraft museum in McMinnville, Oregon houses one of the true legends of aviation history. The largest aircraft ever flown, the mighty Hughes H-4 Hercules or as it is most widely known, “The Spruce Goose”. This gigantic flying boat boasts a wingspan longer than a football field and eight engines of 3000 hp each. Originally designed to ferry troops and supplies across the Atlantic safely above the German U-boats of WWII, the massive project wasn’t finished until after the wars end. However in 1947 Hughes silenced his critics by launching the seaplane into Long Beach Harbor and after a taxi test, lifted the behemoth into the sky. The Hercules stands as monument to one of the greatest innovative minds of our time.
Crater Lake…This National Park in Oregon is home to another of nature’s gemstones. This lake fills the top of a collapsed volcano with a depth of nearly 2000 feet and its deep blue color must be seen to be believed. The cold temperatures have also well preserved “The Old Man of the Lake” which is a full tree that has been bobbing and floating vertically in the lake for nearly a century. The Lake is 6 miles across and the rim road of the mountain reaches nearly 8000 feet of elevation.
Yellowstone National Park…This is another place that almost needs no introduction and is probably as well known as the Grand Canyon. Yellowstone spans nearly 3500 square miles and is home to vast numbers of various wildlife as well some of the most unique geothermal activity anywhere in the world. Most renowned of these of course is “Old Faithful” along with many other geysers throughout the park. This is most likely the kind of place you could return to over and over and still not see all it has to offer but to at least soak in its stunning beauty would be amazing.
Mount Rushmore… This carved mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota is a monument to the most influential Presidents of our first 100 years as a nation. This tourist attractions brings millions to the Black Hills each years to behold this amazing sight of both dedication and workmanship. From 1927 to 1941, Gutzom Borglum and 400 workers labored to sculpt the colossal 60 foot tall faces of the four Presidents.
Crazy Horse and Devil’s Tower…nearby to Mount Rushmore is another mountain carving project being carried out by the Native Americans. The proposed sculpture depicts Chief Crazy Horse upon his steed pointing towards the lands of his tribe. The sculpture in the round when finished will dwarf Mt Rushmore in scale but the question is when will it be finished. The progress has been slow and I don’t know if it will be completed during my lifetime but I would like to see it underway just the same.
Devil’s Tower is natural rock formation in nearby Wyoming. Most notably recognized as the mountain in Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, Devils Tower juts almost 1300 feet into the air above the surrounding landscape and is an imposing sight from pictures alone. In person I can only believe it must be magnificent.
I’m sure there are other attractions out west, the redwoods of California and the Golden Gate Bridge come to mind but those are not so prominent in my mind as the ones listed above.
My wife has told me many times how beautiful Canada is in the summertime, especially Quebec City. We went to Niagara Falls on our honeymoon and that was incredibly beautiful and awe inspiring, especially the “Maid of the Mist” boat ride towards the base of the Falls. So Canada as a whole remains as a place I would like to explore more deeply as long as it isn’t buried under a blanket of snow. She also wants to attend the Houston Quilt Festival which to quilters is as much THE place as Bonneville is to the gearheads. Besides, a trip to Houston is close enough for me to visit the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium and Hall of Fame so that easily works for me.
A annual quilt show in the mountains of Oregon at a small town called Sisters is also an event she wishes to attend and anywhere we get to vacation together is forever on my list.
More in the “things to do” department is my desire to drive an honest-to-God race car. I’ve already had the opportunity to drive my Grand Prix around Texas Motor Speedway at speeds above 100mph, which was thrilling but to put on a firesuit and helmet and climb into a purpose built racing machine is altogether different. The Richard Petty Driving Experience holds weekend track days for all of us racer wannabes. Some classroom time gets you ready and then its into a prepped stock car for some hot laps around the track. Speeds up to 150 mph can be reached so I would certainly choose to tackle this at one of the legendary race courses such as Daytona or Indianapolis.
Second to the Richard Petty School would be a weekend venture called “World Class Driving” where a slightly higher entry fee gives one the chance to hold the reigns of such thoroughbreds as Lamborghini, Ferrari and Porsche. A combination of closed course driving and select rural roads give both a real world and track only taste of the exotic supercars.
That last item begins to reach into the realm of near reality or vacation/travel ideas that begin to get pricey. A cruise to Alaska falls into that area as well as vacation to Hawaii. Alaska I believe would possess the kind of visual majesty that would make a thrilling trip. Hawaii is also rich with sights to behold and a visit to Pearl Harbor would be a crown jewel in my thirst for museums and aviation and naval history showcases.
A little farther into this area is a vacation we have talked about at length and that is across the ocean to France. The lure of Paris for my wife is a strong one, rather more on the intoxicating level. The Louvre art museum alone is enough to suspend her in time for days but the rest of the city calls to her for many different reasons. All of this sounds intriguing and interesting to me as well but my passion lies to the southeast in a little country town called LeMans.
LeMans (Lee-Mon) is the home of one of the oldest and most enduring events in all of motorsports. The Grand Prix of Endurance and Performance, The 24 Hours of LeMans was first run in 1923 and has always been based on how far a car can go in a 24 hour period. The race has become a testing ground for manufacturers for many years, proving your machines at LeMans is a true test of mettle. The race is run on mostly public roads that are closed off for the race weekend. One lap around the course is almost 8.5 miles, the longest of any racecourse in the world. Modern race cars routinely touch the 230mph mark on the Mulsanne straights in a phenomenal display of power and speed. Three drivers take their turns as this frenetic pace continues for the 24 hour period. The course also encompasses three villages within its inner loop which is probably a good thing since over 250,000 people attend the event. To be able to roam free around the French countryside and witness this one of a kind event in its many places and times of day would be a dream come true.
The things that would fall into the fantasy area I could probably fill pages on so I’ll leave those right where they are…in my head.
As with any list things are always subject to change and a solid dose of perspective is always good to have. Maybe I’ll get these things done and maybe not since our future is not promised to us. We all have hopes and dreams, we need them to help us continue to strive to improve ourselves and keep us moving forward. I hope you have a list for yourselves as well because the only thing better than having dreams is having someone to share them with.
Timmy
The Warriors of Autumn September 3, 2009
Posted by tobthebat in Uncategorized.Tags: America, football, gridiron, helmet, Super Bowl
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Sir Andrew said “fight on my men, I am wounded but not yet slain. I shall lie here and bleed awhile, then rise and fight again.”
Inspiring words spoken by Hall of Fame head coach Marv Levy to his Buffalo Bills after losing to the New York Giants in the 1990 Super Bowl. This quote was then posted on the wall of the Bill’s locker room where it became their war cry, as Levy led them to three more consecutive Super Bowl appearances. Though they have since been referred to as “The Lost Rings”, four Super Bowl berths in a row remains a feat unmatched by any NFL team in the history of the game. Marv Levy was admitted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001 and he is well deserving to have his bust placed within those hallowed walls.
Each year as the summer nights grow slightly crisp and cool, the surge within the blood of this country stirs and hearts beat quick with anticipation. We don our brightly colored jackets, hats and jerseys, then venture out into the autumn night to cheer on the most American of gladiators, the football player.
“Football” everywhere else in the world is the common term for what we as Americans refer to as soccer. Yet football here looks like nothing else, the mighty cathedrals these warriors call home rival sports venues anywhere else, but that is only the beginning. “Football” players around the world run onto the field of play with jerseys, shorts, shin guards, possibly gloves and a set of cleats.
Football players here are men of Biblical proportions, one look at a six-foot, seven inch, 300 pound defensive tackle makes the David and Goliath story seem shockingly real. As if their proportions arent astounding enough, since most have the physique of a body builder or power lifter, then we add forty or so pounds of pads and other protective gear. This creates a barely human looking beast and your mind begs the question; “Is the suit for his protection or the other guy?” A brightly colored helmet bears the mark of his loyal tribe of warriors and the mask that covers his face finishes the look with that of a caged animal.
The only thing more frightening than the sight of one of these behemoths up close is seeing just how fast they can move. They spring into action from the cadence of the quarterback and the resulting sound can be unsettling for the un-indoctrinated. They grunt and growl like lions on the hunt and they move after the ball carrier the same manner of cunning and quickness. The impact of hunter and hunted is a twisted mesh of gnashing teeth and pads smacking together that reverberates all the way to where you sit watching in awe.
The seasoned football fan however is past all of the initial shock of such sights and sounds, they now thirst for it with howls and clenched fists. The riotous shouting alone is not enough for them, so they bring along a whole plethora of noisemakers. Anything they can beat and bang on since they know their vocal cords will eventually give out in the chilled night air.
I must now evoke the words taken from the introduction of an ages old VHS tape I have at home. I don’t know who wrote the script but the narration is by the late James Coburn, and to this day it still puts a lump in my throat. Forgive me for paraphrasing since the intro is segmented by sound bites.
Football is game that fills our autumn nights with a rythmic pulse.Millions watch the Super Bowl each year and sometimes its difficult to seperate the sport from the spectacle.
Football is game born in the grassroots of America, and it is game that is played with pride.
This is a portrait of Football America, a seamless garment woven of ritual and emotion. Football is game played with the exuberance of youth, it is game that is played with a warriors heart. Football has a scope as rich and diverse as America herself and it stretches from sea to shining sea.
Football is game that glories in its toughness, with a willingness to endure and play on when other games would not. Football may have started as a pastime, but it has grown into something more. Something that is uniquely American,listen and you can hear it growning ever stronger.
It seems hard to believe even for me, but before I was a car guy, before I was playing with toy cars (or at least around the same time) I was fascinated by football. There hasnt been a Super Bowl played that I havent watched on television. I can even recall getting a football helmet as a young child as one of my most memorable Christmas experiences. I went though more tape and paper cutting out various logos to adorn the side of that helmet so that I could imagine being so many different players I watched on TV.
A childhood friend of mine also got a helmet and a ball and we used to stage entire seasons in his back yard. We would throw the game winning passes, score the touchdowns and thrust our fists into the air in mighty triumph. We could laugh and cheer and pretend to hear the roar of thousands of fans. We would even do our own slow motion replays, and I can tell you falling and diving in slow motion can be tough to pull off. None of the reality mattered to us, if we wanted any of that all we had to do was cross the fence and play with my brother and some of his friends. They were all older and bigger so needless to say we got all of the agony of defeat over there that we could stand. Over there it was just a back yard filled with pain and disappointment but back across the fence it was homefield advantage. There was the roar of the crowd and the narration of the great plays just like we saw our heroes do on Sundays.
Once I grew older you found out that pain and fortitude are major parts of the game. Football practice was a hell on Earth you never knew existed and it quickly seperates those who love the game from those who just thought about it. Forcing you to be tired enough to reach down to your most base instincts. To learn the fine art of being able to pound your team mate, help him back up and then try your best to cleave him asunder a scant few seconds later…and all of this happen while you are still a middle schooler.
This phase of the game is often referred to as “pee-wee” football, but the only reference you will ever hear of that at practice is either you need to use the restroom after you’ve put all that junk on, or you have been told by the coach to knock that particular fluid out of the guy across from you. This is also the first taste of the glory that comes from the “friday night lights”.
Early on you were issued a “game jersey” and expressly forbidden to wear it to practice. The game night finally comes and you pull on your sqeaky clean uniform, clean off any dirt and grime from your helmet so your logo is plainly seen. You tape up your cleats to keep them from coming untied and you run out onto the brightly lit field to the sounds of young cheerleaders and your screaming parents. Those sounds fade rapidly as you marvel at the painted lines and hash marks. This is where the big boys play and you have finally arrived, all the pain and exhaustion of practice becomes a distant memory, for tonight you ARE the gladiator. Your opponent across from you might well be your classmate and friend on Monday morning, but tonight he is the mortal enemy. Tonight he shall be cast to the lions and trampled under your spiked heels. Let his parents and his girlfriend mourn for this night he shall suffer pain and humiliation at your hands.
Things dont always go as planned, and many nights its the game clock that moves in slow motion and wont speed up for at least a mercy killing. This thirst for victory, this desire to rise above those tasked against you is the inner boy that never seems to leave the man. How often on television do we see these giants of the gridiron shed both tears of joy and elation while a few yards away another crumbles to his knees and weeps the pain of defeat.
“Its only a game” is a phrase that has been uttered more times than I can count, but for any who have ever worn the armor of the gladiator and known the glory of gridiron combat, it will never be “just a game”. It doesnt matter if you only played a season or half your lifetime. Even those who now bear the scars and wounds of their time in the arena, think back about those vivid moments and tell of them with verve and passion. The fleeting moments when they played the game and felt like something more than human. Superheroes, warriors, to be part of something larger than you ever were alone. To have done things in the heat of adrenaline and raw desire that you never could have done anywhere else. To remove that uniform begins to feel like taking off a part of yourself.
Maybe that is why the helmets and jerseys on display in The Hall of Fame seem like the ghosts of the warriors you watched play so long ago.
Even now in my old age, I sometimes dream about the path that might have been. This is why so many of us watch the game with such eager desire, because some fleeting part of us still wishes we could pull on the armor of the football warrior and still go out to battle. We cheer and we cry and we live and die with our colors brightly displayed, because the little boy inside of us still wants to grow up to be them…over and over again.
Long live Football America, and the sweet breezes of autumn that brings our warriors onto the field once more.
Timmy
Business as Unusual August 31, 2009
Posted by tobthebat in Car Guy Thoughts, Uncategorized.Tags: bailout, electric, gearhead, Government, hybrid, Prius, Toyota
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I have been a car guy or gearhead for most of my adult life and as with most things, time has brought a greater level of experience and understanding about my favorite hobby. I suppose it was only natural that my interests would grow from simply improving looks and performance to branching out into the car business as a whole. The auto world truly is a multi-faceted animal, incorporating everything from art and design to engineering and manufacturing. Sales and financing I have gained knowledge from simply being exposed to so much of it for so long but that isn’t my favorite place to be in the car universe.
I can only believe that since I have spent a thirty year career in manufacturing in nylon plastics and the auto companies have often been the end users of our products, that I would have been intrigued by the business of building cars as well.
We regularly receive market updates to let us know how we are doing in our business sector and in the economy as a whole. Last week though I was very taken by an article I read on an interview with one of Toyota’s top executives pertaining to their future as it relates to electric vehicles. Toyota responded rather frankly that they have no plans at present to produce a fully electric car. They cited electric motor durability and modern battery technology along with a lack of available infrastructure to fully support such a vehicle. They continued further by saying they would not risk their reputation of reliability on such an unproven vehicle in today’s world. The most important punch point they drove home was they felt their Prius model still had many refinements that could be made to make an even more efficient hybrid and therefore more usable car than it already is.
The most striking point out of all of this profound confession by Toyota was that they admitted they had been building the Prius for four years before the car ever turned a profit. Considering the car was introduced to production in 1997 and then delivered to U.S. shores in 2001,Toyota has been building hybrids for over a decade and are preparing a plug-in version for production as we speak. This easily makes them the most experienced hybrid builders on the planet and obviously the most business savvy since they had the foresight to start before anyone else and take a four year gamble that has paid off for them in spades. Today over half of their 1.2 million unit production per year are sold in this country alone.
To me this is a prime reason why the American auto makers are not only getting their butts kicked but are now trying to get up off the mat of structured bankruptcy. Save for Ford, who managed to weather the storm of the economic crash better than GM or Chrysler.
On a recent vacation to western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, I had the opportunity to see firsthand what a huge part the auto industry plays in our economy. I passed multiple assembly plants and stamping factories that were larger in size than many midwest towns. Their employee parking lots would have shamed most any WalMart at the height of Christmas shopping season and this only represented one shift of workers. These awe inspiring sights made it easy to see how whole towns and small cities have grown up around these plants, which in turn have spawned even more jobs in the local communities where the families of these workers reside.
The truly depressing part of seeing all of this was knowing the mindset that the modern business world has these days. I hear on my job all the time that older equipment cannot afford to be upgraded or made more reliable unless it can be proven that the cost can be recovered in six months to a year. This is a glaring example of how not one of the U.S. automakers would have rolled the dice on a project like the Prius and stayed with it until it paid its dividends over the long haul. Our auto execs were too busy marching on Capitol Hill to protest CAFE standards being raised or mandatory safety improvements, forever citing the excessive cost of such equipment.
What none of them was willing to say out loud was that they were not willing to see their own top level pay diminished or that they were already profiting handsomely from products they had in production, two things that would be blasphemy to disturb. They clung to this mentality and the Feds cut them break after break until they finally choked on their own greed. How ironic in the end that the very entity they fought against most was the one they turned to to bail them out…The Federal Government.
Americans can say what they wish about capitalism and our free market system but it has more than one downside. American CEO salary has rocketed skyward in the last ten years, to the tune of 475%. If minimum wage had climbed by an equal measure that figure would now be on the order of $24 a hour. Many so called “good paying” jobs in our present market don’t reach that figure. Japanese CEOs by contrast have a set ratio that they are allowed to earn over their own workers, if the company does well and the CEO increases his salary,everyone else gets a pay bump by default. By the same token if the company does badly, everyone suffers equally. This sounds to me like massive incentive for everyone, right down to the guy that sweeps the floor, to take pride in their jobs. Maybe this is why on the average, Japanese CEOs have already worked for the company they now run for 25 plus years. I don’t know if this is a remnant of the Samurai code of honor and loyalty but it certainly seems to be serving them well.
I’m quite sure many would cry foul at this concept and call it socialist or even communist but I don’t see it that way. I have had a top limit on my pay scale for my entire career. I would venture to say the majority of us have as well. I see no reason why someone who sits on board of directors or is a management level should have an almost topless limit, even more insulting is how they will have a set salary and then bonus themselves many times over that salary even if it means they had to cut jobs or benefits to do so.
The auto industry has a greater excuse to compete in a global economy than almost any other business since vehicles are sold all over the world. The US automaker has long ignored the high fuel prices in other countries and continued to build cars that no one else in the world wants due to size and economy. This is the glaring reason why our exports have been so poor for so very long. The domestic builders also enjoy a unique set of Federal safeguards that many other businesses do not, if foreign auto builders wish to sell their cars here without high import tariffs then those vehicles must be built here, or at the very least final assembly must be here.
Both Honda and Toyota have taken a major foothold here in the USA and even with this competition directly under their noses the US builders still managed to plow forward with greed and short term goals…and slowed had their hats handed to them.
The business of industry in this country needs a major overhaul almost as badly as does health care. Industry and manufacturing provide the kind of jobs that people can make a living at, raise a family on and drive an economy behind. When the middle class of this nation flourishes, the entire country does as well. They are the backbone of this dream we call America and they have been abused for far too long. When people at the top pat themselves on the back and give themselves a bonus even when a nations economy tanks, that is doing so with a boot heel on the throats of the very people your business is built on. I cant think of anything that sounds more like a modern day analogy to tyrannical rule than that.
Earlier today I received a bill from my family doctor for a follow up visit I recently had. The charge was $192 and I saw the doctor for all of ten minutes. I realize the nurses must be paid and the lights have to stay on and supplies have to be purchased…but Holy Moses, $768 an hour?!
The more frightening aspect of this is that if I made $192 an hour, that would be almost $400,000 a year. Which would mean that the CEO of my company, who makes about $3 million salary is getting almost $1500 an hour. Those are pretty staggering figures by almost anyone’s standards. If I were on the Japanese pay scale standard my salary would be bumped to almost $330,000 per year. I believe even I would consider myself wildly overpaid at that amount. So not counting his bonus for last year, I know I already consider my CEO wildly overpaid,especially in light of the job and benefit cuts that have been made in the last year alone.
At some point the astronomical spiral of greed and short-sightedness of this country must be stopped. We as citizens and workers are constantly told we must think about our long term future, be smart with our money and not live beyond our means. I truly believe our Government will have to spend less when it can stop trying to fill the wounds that are gashed into our society by the business and money moguls.
Vilfredo Pareto formulated the 80/20 rule long ago in Italy and it is still very close to truth today. I find it ironic however that even though the top 20 percent make most of the money they are the most opposed to higher taxes. While true their taxes are a staggering amount, the funds they hold are equally staggering. When I work overtime I have to pay a larger share in income tax so that all seems quite fair to me. Oliver Wendell Holmes said “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society”…I’m sure virtually everyone in the top 20 percent will disagree.
I say if they dont want to pay it in taxes, then create jobs and pay it in wages and grow your company. You help the economy and the nation as a whole. You reduce unemployment and maybe get some people off the welfare roles…but all that would be logical, and logic and greed have never gone hand in hand.
Yet decent paying jobs drive both the auto and housing markets stronger than any other stimulant. I hope to see the day that the business in this country will be both smarter and more patriotic than it has been in recent years, but right now that light of hope is pretty dim. The free market system in this country has proven it will eat its own young if there is quick profit to be had. Those are qualities that are far removed from anything resembling honor or loyalty.
I had told myself when I started this blog that I didnt want to make it a political bashing board because I do so tire of that. Yet I dont truly consider this to be a political problem. If I owned a stout performance car and I chose to take it out onto public highways and drive triple digit speeds, I would not only risk my life but others around me and put myself in direct danger of the weight of the law. To which if I were caught, I would then be punished severely in several different forms of fines, loss of driving privileges and possible jail time.
To this end, the Federal Government is the only police force the business world has to answer to. In my opinion if they would behave in a rational and humane fashion there would be no need for intervention, but since they continue to prove over and over again that they cannot be trusted to invest in the health of a nation where they enjoy freedoms available nowhere else in the world, then they must have their day in court…or in this case to answer to a Government elected by the people they have been robbing blind.
Even with all we have wrong, not many other places in the world could I pursue my hobby and passion as I have done for most of my life, but if we dont fix these problems it may not stay that way for much longer.
Maybe the car guys should do a “million car march” on Washington, or maybe better yet, Wall Street.
Timmy
