Baby you can drive my car

Lil' OB, first day of senior year

On our quiet little dead-end street, there will be no less than four 2015 high school grads come this June, including Lil' OB. I refer to them and their compadres as the "Youth of America."

"Good morning, Youth of America," I used to say to them as they waited at the bus stop during the grade and middle school years. Now they've all grown up. No more bus stop congregations.

You want to know something about the Youth of America, dear reader?

They don't care about driving.

This perplexed the Goat and your humble hostess when we saw it evidenced among some of Lil' OB's cohorts. They put off getting their drivers' licenses as long as possible. Parents were the ones coaxing kids to learn to drive. Plenty of parents had to issue a mandate: you have to get your license or else ...

Driving has become a necessity, not a recreation. Kids don't romanticize driving and cars the way older generations do. Kids don't cruise around. They don't hang out anymore. Social media has replaced the casual impromptu drive-in parties in parks and convenience store lots we all remember.

Turns out this is not just a thing around here. Per the U.S Federation of Public Interest Research Groups, "the percentage of high school seniors with driver’s licenses declined from 85 percent to 73 percent between 1996 and 2010, according to the AAA Foundation for Highway Safety, with federal data suggesting that the decline has continued since 2010." The Washington Post detailed what's behind those staggering numbers in this exhaustive article last fall.

Humble Hostess with first VW Bug, circa 1981

Dear reader, the Youths of America do not want cars. They don't want another loan on top of their student loan. They don't want to deal with insurance. They don't want to buy gas or pay for expensive parking spaces downtown. Driving is just a hassle. They don't care if you believe in climate change or not; they don't like hydrocarbon exhaust. And none of this is going to change any time soon.

Although I suspect the GOP will do everything in it's power to stop this trend, forcing people to drive more and buy cars is a tricky business, particularly when the good ol' free market offers up solutions like Zipcar and Uber. Read this Cleveland story to get an inside look at what users say about ridesharing. Nonetheless, there is a little problem brewing in this kettle of stone soup.

Got infrastructure?

Car or no car, we all need it and we all finance the vehicular infrastructure with the gas tax, but per the first link up there: "Between 2001 and 2009, the average number of miles driven by 16- to 34-year-olds dropped by 23 percent."

Less miles driven means less gas purchased and less gasoline tax paid. Considering "both the Highway Account and the Mass Transit Account of the Highway Trust Fund are nearing insolvency," this does not bode well.

And while this matter percolates beneath similar issues such as building a fiber optic infrastructure, maintaining the antiquated electrical grid (amid a burgeoning solar revolution) and even grappling with the landline telephone system, what's our Congress doing?

Why, worrying about rape and abortion, of course, and trying to repeal Obamacare, and broadcasting partisanship across the globe and and and ... doing nothing to shore up the middle class or solve its very real problems.

Who's going to pay for the roads when traffic is reduced by 25 or 50 percent or more?

Who is going to pay for the roads?

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Gentlemen, start your engines

Humble hostess (second from left) and racing associates, circa 1989

The Goat and I watched Rush the other day. I loved every minute of it, but it sure brought back a slew of memories.

Back in the day, Budweiser used to run an Indy car race at Cleveland's Burke Lake Front Airport. I always went with Mom and Dad, a boyfriend or some buddies. It was all about cold beer, hot sun and loud fast Indy cars.

I used to love going to the Friday night practice sessions and time trials. Admission was a buck and the crowds were reduced to a few coolios sauntering around drinking beer while the Indy cars screamed around the track.

One year, I got a hold of a couple of hot passes, which got you into the pits. Man, that was great.

Paul Newman pulls into the pits on his moped at the Cleveland Bud 500

Aw hell, I miss those days. I miss Mid Ohio and Nelson's Ledges. I miss the buckets of chicken and zippo lighters and endless mud. I miss Dad telling stories about Watkins Glen and the Bog.

Dad tries on an Indy car for size while his '49 Willys watches on 

I miss Chris Economaki and Jackie Stewart jawing on ABC's Wide World of Sports while Dad and I emptied cans of Stroh's and watched A. J. and Mario and Bobby chase each other around the oval.

I miss all of it.

Maybe when all this goddamn snow finally melts, I'll pack the kid up and drag her down to Nelson Ledges for one of those crazy events they have down there: the motorcycle shows or one of those silly club races.

Now if I could only get this lump out of my throat.

A cargo boat glides by the Roar on the Shore

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The Goat, the Queen, a bull and a Bug

No, Goat, we didn't come here to ride the Ferris Wheel.

We're at the Auto Show! We need to find a chariot fit for a queen.

Nah. That one's for Hoose. It even says so right on the tire.

Dunno, Goat. Don't think these will hold up in the rain.

I think this one might be Philbilly's. You see Philbilly anywhere around here?

Quit fooling around and help me find a proper vehicle, Goat!

Um, Goat? We need a whole car, not just a stack o' tires.

Nope. Those lights on the roll bar look like eyeballs. Creep me out!

If I'd wanted a horse, Goat, we'd have gone to a stable.

Betcha they pick out something yellow.

You're not going to listen to a robot, are you, Goat?

This guy will tell us where to look.

Well then ...

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American muscle

My Gram Soos was born in 1916. Whenever the topic of the Great Depression came up, she'd always fit the following into the conversation.

"You know what ended the Great Depression?" she'd say with the superiority of someone who had lived through it. "The War ended the Great Depression." Then she'd pause and nod. "The War."

The War was of course backed by untold dollars courtesy of Uncle Sam. WWII was the biggest stimulus package of all time, but no one called it that.

Did it work? Hell yes it worked. After all, Hitler was real. Pearl Harbor was real. Americans could see the looming threat and they wanted to be a part of vanquishing it. They were proud to serve and see their sons serve. Americans bucked up behind gas rations and bellied up to city chicken while Rosie the Riveter did her part on the home front. These were the right and patriotic things to do.

The money Uncle Sam spent on WWII was the most effective stimulus of all time because Americans believed in every nickel of it. They perceived it as money that needed to be spent.

This essay could now take a long detour through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I'll leave that circuitous trip for you to meander on your own, dear reader. Instead I'm going to jump to 2009, when, in order to address the financial crash of 2008, Uncle Sam pumped some $800 billion into everything from unemployment to infrastructure, housing to education. Obama's stimulus package was officially titled the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Unfortunately, John Q. Public didn't believe much in it. You can argue that's because the dollars weren't visible enough or that the GOP bad-mouthed it into dis-credibility or perhaps you have a reason of your own. No matter. In the end, the results were lukewarm at best.

But the auto bailout? Now that was a stimulus with some muscle.

Bush threw the first lifeline to Detroit in 2008 by redirecting some TARP (aka bank bailout) funds. Obama threw more dollars Michigan's way in 2009. In the end, Washington pumped about $80 billion into the withered auto industry. Did it work?

We love our cars. We touch them every day. Our cars are real. I have never owned an American car, but I still love the American car industry. Throw American dollars at something Americans believe in and it will succeed in the game of perception.

Who backed us when we were down?

So despite the initial unpopularity, despite all the bellyaching and moaning from the right, the middle, the wherever, Obama's staggering and consistent lead in Ohio and Michigan should come as no surprise.

Now then, consider this match-up:

Imported From Detroit vs. Let Detroit Fail

We all know the blue collar guy will KO the white collar guy with the first punch. Therein lies the Right's terrible troubles, which are coming to fruition in the wake of its We're-Against-Everything-Obama's-For-No-Matter-What modus operandi. The anti-Detroit campaign might have been appealing from a Forbes point of view--the what-ifs have been endlessly dissected and inspected, but you can't always run the country like a business. Sometimes you've got to listen to America's heart, where you'll find Chevy in a line-up with Mom, baseball and apple pie.

There are some things you should never bet against.

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Push it real good

Had dinner out with a group of friends not long ago. As we ambled out of the Grovewood Tavern, drowsy with wine and full up with potstickers, crab cakes and caramel pecan cake, one of the guys noticed a man pushing a car up a nearby drive.

The male members of our group sprang into action like spontaneous erections. Overfed gourmands no more, these he-men were street legal and ready to rumble. They engulfed the car and rolled it up the drive in a flash.

Guys really like pushing cars.

Courtesy of the damnable reliability of today's internal combustion engines, however, they don't get to do it much anymore. As the rare sightings of two guys muscling a Chevy into the corner Shell station dwindle, the male population's fondness for this rudimentary act only deepens.

The more perilous the vehicular situation, the more seductive it is. If a guy sees two guys pushing a car, he goes over to help. If just one guy is trying to push and steer from the vee formed by car and driver's side door, the other guy runs over to help. And an elderly madam unsuccessfully cranking her engine in the middle of a busy intersection ironically becomes more irresistible than a Sports Illustrated "Swimsuit Edition" still in the plastic sleeve.

Deconstruction of this phenomenon is blissfully simple. Pushing a car is a straightforward activity with visible results: you push, the car moves. Guys understand that. There are no hidden complications in the neat box of Guys Pushing Car. It's satisfying and universal, like shaving, or buying Cruex, or tying a tie. Plus it's something guys can do together. Pushing a car bestows guys with a sense of guy community.

Guys enjoy the verbalization evoked by pushing a car.

"You need to cut it left. Left! Okay, now straighten it out. Straighten! STRAIGHTEN!!"

Guys also used to be able to make cartalk (an approved guy-on-guy nonsexual flirting exchange) while pushing a car, which would not be shouted, but spoken in a conversational tone, thereby implying that the associated guys are enjoying a certain control over the car-pushing endeavor.

"So whaddya got in here? A V8?"

No one (save that Sunday afternoon car show contingent of old guys with pot bellies, pompadours, and cigarette packs rolled in the sleeve of their pocket-tees) talks about a V8 anymore unless they're ordering a Bloody Mary. The advent of the computerized compact car took cartalk away from guys. Even if someone's Nissan Sentra runs out of gas and requires a push, what are the car pushing guys of today supposed to say?

"This baby got a helical limited-slip differential?"

No one wants to hear car-pushing guys talking about limited-slip differentials. It's downright emasculating. The removal of cartalk from the proceedings, however, has only elevated the revered act of pushing.

If a car needed pushing, I'd be the first in line. But if there were a bunch of guys standing around? No way. Those guys can come over and push the goddamn car. I'd be the Steering Chick.

The Steering Chick is sort of like the Band Chick with the tambourine and go-go boots, except the Steering Chick doesn't have a tambourine or go-go boots, she's just steering. I am excellent Steering Chick material.

I'd comply as they directed me to cut it left and straighten. After they pushed my car out of the ditch, I'd humbly say, "Aw Christ, you guys can't know how much I appreciate that." The car-pushing guys would like me. They'd think I was a good Steering Chick; and we'd all bask in the unspoken and intimate portion of the experience.

Another more nuanced reason guys like pushing a car is that it's hard at first, then it gets easy. Car-pushing guys believe this is a secret trick.

Hey guys? We all know that pushing the car is easy once you get it going.

That corollary does not apply to pushing a car up a hill or out of a mud pit. Such complications represent the zenith of the car-pushing craft; and they impart a stoic solidarity to the associated guys.

After guys complete a challenging car push, they review the event by leaning against the just-pushed car, cans of Genny Cream Ale perched on the swells of their bellies. They say things like, "Almost didn't make it over that second ridge," or "Holy shit, that mud over by the barn just about sucked my boot right off." The group responds by snorting, shaking their heads, and kicking at stones. Then they crush their beer cans and say their goodbyes, fulfilled in a way no amount of fellatio can achieve.

There is the unfortunate instance when the car pushing does not succeed. When the orgiastic moment of car gliding out of peril does not come. No bonding moment, no crushed beer cans, no flirty grins from the Steering Chick. Despite their every effort, there are times when all the car-pushing guys have is a car obstinately stuck in the mud.

That's when you get out the towrope.

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