For about the past year I have been carless, as in being without car of my very own. This is a less than serious incentive for remorse. I am fully retired and don’t actually have to be anywhere that my wife does not tell me to go. Usually any place that I go, she goes too. Mostly the arrangement works. But then. ……. By golly gosh durn it all I am a man. A man that worked better than forty years in the car industry. Yes I know that I did not actually make cars but I did make an awful lot of the tools that make cars. Forty years plus of toil. I NEED my own private transportation module. Or more correctly put, I need a self propelled, artificially powered, stylish, weather protective, steel cocooned, creature comfortable, wonder machine, that properly denotes my status in life and serves the basic transportation needs of an arthritic old fart. Ummmm. ……. That’d me.

Soooo. ….. It’s off to dreamland, otherwise known as my local Ford dealer. I walked confidently through the door and prostrate myself eagerly before the gatekeeper. That’d be a friendly car salesman named Bob Griffith. I sit down in a Manley man sort of way, I look old Griffith straight in the eye and in a high squeaky voice say. “Say dawgh! You got any Mustangs here ……. Awe …. Cheap?”

Bob G rears back confidently and commands. “Let’s go for a test ride”.

Like magic a well equipped new Mustang appears at the door. I am MELTING. Wow! This could be mine. Auld, and very wise Bob Griffith hands me the key and says just drop it on the seat next to you and push the start button. Crackle, pop, pop, bang, roar and the heart, liver, spleen, and pancreatic juices under the hood become a living thing. This is awesome and with eyes as big as silver dollars I am ready to go. I put it gently into “D”. The great beast begins to move, slowly at first but then faster, and ever faster.
I am pushed back in my seat, the world outside is flashing by, the sound is magnificent, the feeling intoxicating. I. A M. I N. L O V E, Totally hooked. My life is fulfilled. Lessee here now just thirty eight thousand and some pittance more and I can own this personal transportation contraption.

Seems worth while.

I am now in my home sleeping on it. I know the decision will be the same as it always has been. Pay the money, take it home for adoption, and let the new dream machine become a part of me. My new reliable mechanical friend. I just need a tad more time to have the courage to make the financial arrangements. But I will, oh how I will, as always when NEW CAR FEVER strikes my helpless, weak, hapless, being.

… originally written by my father as a letter to his friends