Lost and (needs) Found

I know all about this stuff called progress and how it’s supposed to make life better. However, sometimes I wish we could, or would, just leave well enough alone. You know, I miss nickel cokes. I miss quarter car magazines. I miss poodle skirts and pegged jeans. I miss the corner soda fountain! Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Don’t live in the past !! But some times……….

This ole world has seen a lot of changes in a relatively short period of time. We have traveled from to days of horse and buggy to the era of space travel within the life time of many of us. We have grown out of the wood cook stove to the microwave and beyond. From the pony express to the p.c. with e-mail (with pictures no less).


For those in our mist not quite into the ‘golden years’ yet, we have migrated from the tube television to the digital surround sound. Or from the fuzzy black and white small screen to the 60” home theatre. Well anyway you get my point. We’ve changed a lot.

In some ways that’s one of the reasons that our hobby keeps on growing. Changes that is. It doesn’t matter if you’re into traditional rods and custom cars or relish the newer trends that stretch the limits of both metal and man. The main fact remains that you want change. Many among us want to relive their youth, or at least what they wish it had been like. Others of course are doing the things that were not possible as they forged their way through life.

One of the greatest aspects of our hobby is the ‘new kid on the block’. He is either an old hand just starting to create his dream or a young buck welding his way into tomorrow’s memories. Which ever applies, he or she thrives on change! Be it going beyond where those before him had stopped or developing newer, better ways to explore more diverse change, the fact is still centered around change.


Just as in by gone days not all change is good. But creativity knows no boundaries and beauty is still in the eye of the beholder. ‘Nough said there! Anyway nothing is sacred when it comes to change. Especially in our area of change, i.e. the automobile. We will change headlights, taillights, tail fins, side trim, top height, body height, color, inside, outside, under side and anything else we can find to individualize. Some just because we can, other changes actually enhance the vehicle. Again it’s the eye and beauty thing.

For a lot of us more mature enthusiasts(read that older) certain items that are all but gone have left an empty spot in our yearning for satisfaction. You know the ‘good ole days’. Now it is a given fact that the good ole days are in direct relation to your age. I mean to me that term applies to the late 50’s and early 60’s. If you’re in your 40’s it’s the 70’s that occupy your memory banks. The “good ole days” for you are the way things were when you began to notice them.

Each generation has left its own mark on that area. Each has in its own right created change for what in their eyes was the betterment of whatever. Hopefully each generation has profited from the one before it. Profited in that one learned from the other. Today’s builders create a far superior product to that of the early pioneers in our hobby. Of course advancements in construction equipment aided much of the advancement, but that in its self was change.

I miss the old days when a bunch of us ‘experts’ would gather at somebody’s garage and bust a few knuckles for the sake of building a car. I miss the Saturaday trips to the bone yard to scrounge what we could make fit. I miss the trial and error method of doing something not done before. You know it’s amazing what a ‘smoke wrench’ and a hammer can accomplish in the hands of an experienced craftsman(?). I miss the challenge of that ‘first’ time.
I miss the swap meets where we actually could swap parts.

But there is a lot to be said for today’s garage scene. For one it’s usually a lot cleaner and safer than its older counter part. And generally speaking those partaking in the re-building process are more knowledgeable than before. We can now let our fingers do the walking for parts, though it just doesn’t seem as much fun. I mean can you see yourself calling your buddies over on a week end for a trip through the old catalog ??

Also gone from the scene is the AM radio. Along with it went FM converter. Remember the rear seat speaker fader switch ?? Or the reverberator?? We now boost of multi Cd units and satellite radio!!! The sound systems cost as much as our whole car used to cost!! You can even hide the unit and operate it via remote control from a credit card sized control panel. Amazing. While working on installing one of the afore mentioned modern inventions, I discovered something else that I miss. A simple little item that I see no reason to abandon. An item so usefull, so necessary that its demise is a complete mystery to me.

That’s when I realized that I had joined those before me in ranks of ‘old timers’. I had to call my grandkids to find out how to turn the @#*+%# thing ON!! There is no OFF/ON switch! No where does it say ‘on’. Such a simple task to perform. It isn’t difficult. It doesn’t require a degree. I just want to turn the thing on. So where’s the switch ??

Yep, there are a lot of things a miss in today’s world.


SEE YOU ON THE STREET

RON GOBEN