Do try not to choke on your coffee.  All right, crew, which of you have been pigging all the goodies and adjusting your motors so that they smoke, having useless MRIs and cosmetic by-pass surgery, and stomping on puppies?

Fear not, for Brian says that Generations X and Y are going to clean up the messes and that they’ve asked us nicely this time to give up our polluting land yachts and other (unspecified) evil practices, but that they won’t do it again.  I got the feeling he was thinking happily of tumbrels, guillotines, and vacations in Guantanamo, not remaining silent sensibly.

Gracious, no, I don’t need a buggy whip to cope with gratuitous insults, that being what words are for, and I even admired his line that my “railing against plugging in cars is like a caveman railing against the wheel.”  He thinks we should all be riding bicycles to solve the oil crisis and the obesity problem in America.

Hmmm.  It is fifteen miles to our beautiful Kroger store, and by the time I had pedaled that far in 100 degree temperatures and been able to bring back only what would fit in a little basket I would surely either have heat stroke or starve three men and myself to death.  Fortunately I do not know how to ride a bike so I am free to continue “to sadden him by defining myself by the cars I drive!”

Pity he doesn’t know we have a bucket truck, a back hoe, and an eight-ton truck capable of pulling 55,000 pounds.  Danged if I wouldn’t drive the big yellow Blue Bird school bus to the grocery store if it wouldn’t mean registering and insuring it.  Some jokes are too expensive to justify.

Which is where the buggy whip comes in.

Today a totally restored doctor’s buggy, resplendent in glossy black enamel and new upholstery was delivered–complete with a whip in the holder!  She’s a beauty–and a Deere, Emily!  Studebaker was top of the line, so ours is more like a fully loaded big Buick.

You missed a real La Vida Whiskey moment when Freddie got between the shafts and galloped down the hill to a storage barn, the wheels, picked out in silver, glittering in the sun!  I guess we could call it the American version of a rickshaw?

Charles and I are having an unprecedented failure to be of one mind on a subject.  I think his larger male horse should be taught to pull the buggy (clearly a shocking use of a highly-trained cow horse), while he suggests that my dainty, elegant thoroughbred Bonnie Blue should perform labor that is clearly not befitting her exalted breeding and aristocratic mien.  Fear not, one of the great love stories of the ages is not endangered because the solution is obvious:  if both equines decline to become cart horses we will simply buy one trained to pull buggies who doesn’t know this is beneath its dignity.

Or I’ll get Freddie to pull me around in it and learn to use my whip delicately enough to flick a fly off his ear.   “Whoa down, there, Freddie!” and “Haw, big fellow!”  Freddie has a great sense of humor and we just laughed uproariously over the idea.  He wants a silver-mounted bridle.  No bit, of course.  We don’t use bits.  And a reasonable stipulation that he doesn’t have to pull me up hills.  Buck (occasionally known as “Clyde,” for obvious reasons) loves to be ridden so that he lowers his head eagerly for Charles to slip his bridle on, and Charles rides him bareback when not working cattle.  Bonnie gets jealous and goes out and rounds the cattle up all by herself  and moves the Black Dexters up to the house.  She’s not up to Charles’ weight, some two hundred pounds on his six-one frame, but try to explain that to a horse with hurt feelings.

The lighthearted but serious lesson for today is that the most ethnocentric nation on earth really needs to stop sneering at old-fashioned technology.  Mankind got along splendidly for thousands of years with real horsepower, and it is only for the last hundred years that mechanical horses have come into being.  Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan conquered a fair bit of territory on horse back, although the Carthaginians came to grief trying to get 37 elephants over the Alps.  Asia rode Buck today without saddle OR bridle, because Buck both knee- and neck-reins and he likes to be worked.  Try THAT with an automobile.  On the other hand a massive war horse required a bushel and a half of oats a day…

WHY did even two of the world’s prime eccentrics want a buggy?  I really would drive a horse and buggy before I drove a trash can powered by a sewing machine motor, and because it may really be that the time will come when Dobbin and the buggy are the best transportation left if gas supplies are cut and we run out of diesel.  And because it will be fun, of course!  I admit cheerfully that I would have loved to live about 1812.  Assuming I weren’t a scullery maid, of course, but a plutocrat.  I can foresee situations where a pair of horses and their ludicrously expensive tack might be, quite literally, life savers.  If there were still a grocery store open it would take close to two hours in a buggy to get there, and the same to return.  That’s why towns tend to spring up about 25 miles apart, because half that distance makes a day-long trip to get supplies.

The old ways may not be the most convenient, but if we live to see the world of Jim Kunstler it would be mighty nice to have a buckboard to take into town once a month for staples.  Gary walks to the grocery store a few blocks away.  I wonder how frequently he has to go.  Several gallons of milk would be difficult to handle without one of those oriental pole yokes that fits over his shoulders and a growing, neophyte powerlifter can drink a gallon a day.  Imagine a grown man pulling a little red wagon!  If you haven’t priced a Red Flyer recently they’re a couple of hundred dollars.

This article is to balance the really gloomy (but totally justified) fear-mongering I wrote earlier, and I hope you enjoy hearing about our joyous La Vida Whiskey life on the Rafter TS, aka the nearest consulate and Residenze for the Republic of Texas.

Please reach into your memories and come up with old techniques and objects we could stock in case the Greater Depression is really bad.  I’ll start with this:  a fascinating item to add to your emergency stores is calcium carbonate, which, when exposed to water, produces acetylene gas which will provide ample light.  In its dry state it isn’t highly flammable, like white gas, it doesn’t need special storage like propane, and it doesn’t cost seven dollars a gallon like Coleman lantern fuel.  If you have a supply of wicking almost any oil can be used as a lamp, although you might not enjoy having your cave smell like fried chicken.

Piazza time, crew, when we sit on the terrace with alcoholic libations, admire the pasture art (our horses), cows, and the sundown reflecting off the lake, and explain to an adoring young goat that tables are not good to eat.

Wish you were here.

Linda Brady Traynham

June 29, 2009

Dude, Where’s My Buggy Whip? was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

Instead of straining for the unrealistic and unsafe at enormous prices, why don’t we just drive the great automotive achievements of the past?  Instead of spending a great deal on an unsatisfactory new car with higher gas mileage, let’s save twenty or thirty thousand (or more!) by buying a superb used car that offers everything we want.  Truly great automobiles never go out of style and they last for decades.  We’re not talking about a ’91 Plymouth, here!  I want to see you in BMW, Mercedes, and Jaguar.

I posit that the cars of your future should be whatever you, personally, prefer in vehicles, and that the time to buy is now.  Prices are down all across the board and there are many fine old cars for sale ludicrously inexpensively.  Unless you, too, are brainwashed with dread over “carbon footprints,” get whatever older model has all of the features you want that gets your idea of adequate gas mileage.

A true luxury car isn’t even considered broken in well until about 113,000 miles.   Your dream car from bygone times will be good for at least a hundred thousand miles and you can drive happily in safety and comfort. Unlike union-built Detroit Iron, they’re built to last.  You don’t ever plan to trade them in.  You may want to buy more, mind, but you plan on loving and driving one for twenty or thirty years.  A check-up every fifteen thousand miles and a thorough going over every seventy-five thousand–yes, that’s “75,000″–and you aren’t likely to see the mechanic frequently.  “Fix it before it breaks” prevents further damage, and when a car is checked every fifteen thousand miles you aren’t likely to have unpleasant surprises.  Insurance on such cars is considerably less than on a new vehicle, particularly one without a real frame made out of metal so thin it will never protect you in a crash.

Your first purchase should be a Mercedes.  The right one will cost you between two and five thousand and it will be your road car (fast, powerful, comfortable) and your head-turning “night on the town” car.  It will always be a Mercedes, whereas a five-year-old Ford is an old car.  In particular, you want one that runs on diesel–that’s right, just like big trucks do, because diesel has 30% more octane than gasoline, has an almost indefinite shelf-life, requires a bigger engine (because it has higher compression, hence, more power), and that engine will come wrapped in genuine steel not metal you can crush like an empty Coke can.  As though that weren’t enough to fulfill just about everything on our wish list, one a quarter of a century old will still have at least a hundred and fifty thousand miles left in her (and that’s if you don’t find one with less than 150,000; Mr. Benz’ cars have been known to go half a million.) and it won’t be full of quirky computerized electronics that go on the fritz frequently.  Imagine how smug you would feel with a few drums of diesel in your garage (if you don’t have room for a big tank) and were not inconvenienced by long lines, high prices, or ration coupons.

Your Mercedes will have a heavier engine (and body), be safer to handle, have a compression ratio in the range of 14-16 instead of 8.5, and use fuel that is less volatile (viz., likely to explode) while providing more energy.  And it will always be a Mercedes.  We had our choice of four beautifully-maintained big diesel Mercedes Benzes today between $3500 and $4500, not one of them needing a thing other than handing over cash and signing the title.

Life is too short to drink bad wine, eat plastic food, or drive undistinguished, underpowered little cars you peer at uncertainly in parking lots because you can’t tell yours from anyone else’s.   Could your wife like the idea of a luxury sedan with a Leaper on the hood?  I think so!  We Jag-u-ar aficionados wouldn’t dream of driving one of Mr. Ford’s cheap knock-offs.  The older our Cats are the better we like ‘em.  There are glorious older Jaguars to be found easily ranging from a couple of thousand to about ten.  Luxury European cars are almost always maintained scrupulously.  For well under the price of most used cars you could get a Six you put into tip-top condition and plan on her driving it happily forever, and several other elegant, reliable vehicles and a good supply of diesel for your Mercedes.

You want the most for your money and you want to solve the problem completely.  You need enough reliable cars to get your family where everyone needs to go, at rock bottom prices, with the peace that comes from knowing you can rely on them and love them so you aren’t going to get a “new car itch.” Somewhere out there are cars that will sing to you, cars that will be safe, efficient, comfortable, luxurious, and soul-satisfying, and there is no reason whatsoever to be badgered by what is available from Gov Mot.

Go find yourself something wonderful that reminds you of the joy you knew when you got your first car, one that fits you, that is sheer pleasure to drive, that gets you out of expensive loan payments, and that will keep you safe.  All new cars look alike, flimsy bread boxes and shoe boxes.  “Individuality” is fancy lights.  Find out, you younger ones, what it is like to drive a car that is distinctive, one you can find in a parking lot easily.  Find one that feels custom made, where your hands fall naturally on the controls and the seat cradles you just right.  Get an extremely tight steering ratio, superb braking, and plenty of get up and scat, and find out just how much fun it is to drive something you truly love and can afford.  So many of you who have never driven cars with individuality and zest.  All many of you have had is dull, expensive transportation.  Somewhere out there is a dream you can afford.  Go buy it, fix it up if it needs it, be happy, and we’ll give the Nanny State a real lesson in not messing with our passion.

Eventually a lot of people will be unable to run cars–but it doesn’t have to happen to us.  A big part of life is avoiding honestly and imaginatively restrictions we dislike.  I have no concern about the rest of the world when it comes to my beloved wheels and I imagine few of you do, either.

Keep America Beautiful.  Buy a car with a hood ornament!

Regards,
Linda Brady Traynham

June 19, 2009

P.S.: Have I no social conscience?  No.  I have no interest in sacrificing myself on the altar of the putative public good.  Those who have no better choices can eat cake but I’m going to keep on driving what I like.

Have I not hung on James Howard Kunstler’s every word?  Yes.  Certainly I agree that much of JHK’s grim vision will come true, but I do not see why I should allow it to impinge upon my life.  I have no masochistic tendencies at all and I’ll go back to a horse and buggy before I will be stuffed into a wretchedly uncomfortable, seriously unsafe, ugly, bitty Greenie Mobile.  I have had marvelous cars for over fifty years and I intend to drive them so long as my eyesight and reflexes hold out or until the new Oliver Cromwell forces me to flee his fiefdom.  I’m a Cavalier, nothing will make me recant, and I expect a rousing “Huzzah!” from the rest of you who feel that way and are tired of Roundheads.

What Should the Car of the Future Be? was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.