Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The end of the affair


slick, who sells cars for a living, reflects on a time when buying a car actually meant something:

"Ah...the glory days...I remember when someone in the neighborhood bought a new car they parked it at the end of the driveway nearest the sidewalk and eventually all of the neighbors would wander over and take a look, inside, outside and under the hood.

"Today getting a 'new' car is like getting a new pair of socks, nobody cares. Usually we don't even know our neighbors and they could care less about what you drive.

"America and especially Michigan and more specifically Flint had a strong love affair with the automobile. Now it's gone from a love affair to a lackluster marriage out of necessity.

"The car manufacturers have removed all of the mystique and put out cars that rarely vary from the year before. Gone are the days of papering the showroom windows and keeping the new models under wraps. Somehow it was a much simpler and yet more exciting time with the automobile."



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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.