Economic Research: Classic Car Dealers

Tuesday 25 December 2012

Classic Car Dealers

Somewhere west of Ogallala, rocketing across the plains at ninety-six in a sixty-nine Fury, a twangy voice on the radio lectured us with the old song: love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage.My two female traveling companions and I exchanged glances, laughed and sang along: “…you can’t have one without the other.” In that moment everything crystallized: what it meant to be nineteen in 1972, free as a bird, barreling down the freeway with two friends in a big, powerful American sedan. We were headed for the Rockies, retracing the eight hundred mile pilgrimage my family and I made there every summer in the early sixties. This time though, I was literally and figuratively behind the wheel, re-writing the script. Back in the day, the Niedermeyer family would stop at church to pray for a safe trip before all six of us squeezed into our barely mid-sized ’62 Fairlane penalty-box. God drove a hard bargain for our safe-keeping: two seemingly endless days spent sweating on the CIA-interrogation approved clear plastic seat covers, second-guessing our pilot’s passing skills.