Before moving to my Island paradise in the waning years of the 20th century, I had spent my life in the greater Los Angeles area of Southern California. I was born there, educated there, married there (multiple times), fathered my children there, and built a career in an industry that was centered there. And, like so many of my gender and generation from that geographical area, I have a real “thing” about the automobile. I come by it preternaturally. It is all because of General Motors, Firestone Rubber, and Standard Oil of California.
The story
goes that sometime, right near the end of World War II, these three corporations
got together, formed a sham company or two, then colluded to buy up the then-super-efficient
public transportation system in Los Angeles. What they did next was shut down
the electrically powered street cars, putting the system out of business, while
making the building of more freeways and byways not only possible but
“necessary.”
More than
ever, Firestone’s rubber would meet the road, beneath more and more GM cars,
using lots and lots of Chevron gasoline. Not coincidentally, what were once
distant plots of land (purchased at bargain prices by this self-same
consortium) would now conveniently be
available for resale (at a substantial mark-up, of course). These new tract developments
would be built all over Southern California. And all of them were easily
accessible via the newly built adjacent highways.
Quelle surprise.
An
interesting fictionalization of this story may be seen in the 1988 film, Who
Framed Roger Rabbit. There is more truth in that motion picture than
animation, and I commend the Robert Zemeckis movie to your attention.
If you are
still having trouble imagining a public transportation system that functioned
for a sprawling/would-be metropolis such as Los Angeles in the 1930s and 40s,
look it up, it did exist. It was called the “Red Car,” once the largest
electric railway system in the world that at peak traffic hours, could get from
downtown Los Angeles to Long Beach in about 20 minutes. Today, by automobile,
it takes from three to five times longer.
GM and its
allies not only focused corporate dirty tricks on the City of Angels, the
consortium also… with laser like precision… targeted the population of that
growth spurt area with an advertising and PR campaign extolling the automobile
and all it would come to mean, especially to an entire generation of young men,
and even younger, more impressionable, boys.
The doodles
of my early teen years were like those of most of my contemporaries. No clowns,
cowboys, or animals… but drawings of cars… and not renderings of anything then
on a showroom floor, but rather of some would-be magnificent phaeton for the
near future.
Between the
ages of 9 and 15, my primary ambition was that I might one day become a
designer of automobiles working for Ford or GM. I was not unique in that
aspiration. Just about every kid I knew had the same singular vision.
Eventually,
something like the LA “experiment” went on all over America. In the 50s, when
President Eisenhower presided over the largest expansion of highways any
country had ever seen, the thousands and thousands of miles of new roads still
fell hundreds of miles short of the public transportation system we once had in
this country.
The youth of
my generation didn’t care. We either had a car or a dream of having one. If you
were from Southern California, where most of the ads for those chariots were
placed, it was not just a dream; it was an obsession. One that has remained a
large part of my life for well over seven decades.
My great
hobby in retirement has been to drive from Miami to LA… every even-numbered
year… taking from 24 to 28 days to make the trip. Primarily, I navigated along
the “blue lane” highways (those roads that existed before the Interstates—such
as Route 66---that are invariably printed out on any well-made map in
the color blue).
I have made
these drives with a spouse, with a friend, with a then 11-year-old
granddaughter, but… for the most part… I have taken these wonderful road trips
all on my own.
My third and
final honeymoon was a road trip through New England. In 1992, my wife also
joined me on the first of the cross-country trips from South Florida to California…
the first and only time I ever drove through the State of Texas.
In those
days, Texas had no reciprocity with California, so a Mercedes SL with the top
down and sporting a California license plate was red meat to the redneck that
pulled us over. Other vehicles whipped by at speeds I would not have attempted
to replicate. Didn’t matter, I was told to turn around and return to the
nearest county seat by following the motorcycle officer at a speed of something
between 20 and 30mph.
I wound up
defending myself before a small-town magistrate while his bailiff slipped my
Emmy Award winning spouse a note saying, “I love your work.” Good for her. “Guilty,”
said the Judge. Then he asked my wife for her autograph.
There have
been multiple cross-country journeys since, but I have never again driven
through the State of Texas.
Still, had I
not gone through the Lone Star State I would never have discovered beautiful
Round Top, mid-way between Houston and Austin, where we enjoyed the kind of Texas
hospitality you see in the movies. I have family in Dallas, and long-time pals
in Houston and San Antonio. They are always invited to visit me on my warm Island. I might even
fly in to see them, but never again a drive into Texas.
Besides
being my own defense attorney on that trip, I was the pilot and the navigator.
My wife was the bombardier; from Miami to LA we did not miss a Dairy Queen. We
each gained 18 pounds on the trip and Sharon vowed never again to accompany me
on one of my cross-country adventures.
A few years
later, my then 11-year-old granddaughter called to ask if I was going to take
my driving trip again that year… if so, she wanted to come along.
“Are you
sure?” I asked. “It’s four weeks in a very small car with a cranky old man and
no rap music.”
“No rap
music?” She was incredulous.
“Absolutely
not,” I said. She wanted to go anyway and was a real champion on the road. I am
not so sure she remembers much of that mini adventure, but I do… and it still
makes me smile that, over 25 years later, my Granddaughter knows her Randy
Newman.
This last trip is undoubtedly just
that; at 85 years of age it is time to end my cross-country adventures.
It is a melancholy moment for a kid
from LA.
Barney
Rosenzweig
Barney
Rosenzweig
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