Stop!

I can now report that we bought a car on Friday. It’s a new Nissan Altima Hybrid and we’re quite excited about it. We will pick up the car this afternoon and then we start the learning process. How does it drive? What kind of mileage will we get? Power? Where's the radio? All sorts of questions for us. And of course the primary question; did we get a good deal? That will take a lot longer to answer.

Some odd thoughts that came my way after deciding to go ‘Green’ with a hybrid car. My memory tells me that it was in 1974 that I bought a new Oldsmobile Toronado. A car that gave us 8 miles per gallon. Mileage? Who cared! It also would wear through a set of front tires every 8,000 miles. Great car!

That generated another memory; a 1973 Toyota Hi-Lux pickup truck. I had paid $2,100 for it, new. And it had a ‘green’ ecology flag decal in the back window. And that, apparently, was the reason that two of LAPD’s finest decided to stop me on the Santa Monica freeway one afternoon. I had seen them for quite awhile in my rearview mirror, so I was quite surprised when they swerved in behind me and signaled me to pull over. First it was the usual; license and registration please. Then they wanted to know why I had that flag in my window. They gave me no end of trouble about that simple 2”x3” decal, intimating that I had to be some kind of unpatriotic hippie to display something like that. They questioned me as to whether or not I had ever served in the armed forces. I had and that answer seemed to irritate them. After they had vented their frustration with whatever demons were bothering them that day, they told me to ‘have a nice day’ and they left. No ticket and no explanation given for the stop. For me; just one more reason to be wary of those in authority.