Gotta admire a guy who has friends named @Couch and @Slack, both short names with hacker cred. Couch is name of a NoSQL database. Slack is a brand of Linux. So I get it. I'm taking a break from programming right now. It's going to be a long day, and I need to wake up my brain now with a little writing.
I had to drive the Chevy Cruze. First, I am in love with Chevys (Chevies?) I'm old enough to remember the Nash Rambler. My father had one, and I came home from the hospital in his Nash. I probably was conceived in it. You see, my parents met while out cruising on Eight Mile in Detroit. She arrived with friends to a drive-in burger shop on the Eight. Butter Burgers it was called. Like most of Detroit from the fifties, it's not there anymore. He arrived with his mates and noticed my mother. She tried to guess his age and blew it, losing a bet. He made her pay it off in five cups of coffee, taken over five days. I know, I still cringe at the cheesiness, but who am I to complain at how I got my shot at mortality? On the way to a drive-in Soft Serve joint, they pointed it out to me one day when I was really little. The Nash was beautiful, mostly pink, as layered as a birthday cake with chrome frosting. Then dad pissed me off. He traded in the Nash. But then I fell in love with a new brand. One day, my father came home with a Chevy, with little buttons in the interior that read, GM Mark of Excellence. So not only was I probably concieved in the back of a car, I learned to read there too. So just remember when you watch the Woodward Dream Cruise or the organized cruise up and down Gratiot: those are not parades. Those are not cars. That's a mating ritual and those are rolling bedrooms, motorized nurseries, portable living rooms, dashboard dining rooms.
Detroiters of the Diaspora have had to leave town in droves by driving. We took a little Detroit with us out onto the road. We had plenty of nice roads to take in all directions, from the great wheel of Detroit, hub at Campus Martius.
But back to the Chevy. My father's first new from the dealership car came from Matthew Hargraves Chevrolet, and it was a Chevy, a Chevelle. So the Cruze is Chevy's newest incarnation, so I'm tooling around in that this week. It's a little car that feels big, although I feel as if my arse is scraping along pavement, so low slung is the seats. Last month, I tooled around town in a Dodge Avenger, of which I have no picture. How do I maintain this endless string of cars. Let's just say Wandering Wilbo has financial backers. Wilbo likes it because he once had a position in the great chain of Detroit automobile suppliers and assemblers. When you're a shooter in that world, you get a new car every year. Design types and executives get a new car to evaluate every week. Maybe the Wilbo is living out that fantasy. For a few more months, I think. Then it's time to settle down with some new sheet metal.
People who read this blog for the long haul know that a drunk driver knocked Wilbo's Bonzer S-10 Truck into oblivion, logging its last mile on Business 31 in Muskegon Michigan. The new official Wilbo Wagon has yet to be appointed, but I'm really leaning towards the 2011 Chrysler 200. I have peeps all the way up and down the supply chain who worked on this one, and I'm proud of it. However, I'm afraid to buy one because I don't want to identify too closely with Eminem and the fact that I do identify with him makes me want to consult a shrink. I bet there's women who won't wear fur or leathers who won't ride around in a 200.
Like Marshall Mathers, Wandering Wilbo is imported from Detroit. Came home from the hospital to the Eminem Block of Warren, Michigan. Long before Marshall came home from the hospital.
One of the favorite activities of Wandering Wilbo is Cruzing.
Nash Rambler
Like Most of the Stories, I write, the details are recreated in an aging mind. According to this, Butter Burgers is really a Culvers on Little Mack in Roseville, Michigan. My parents met in a Culvers? I'm off to drink hard for the rest of my life:
Restoring the Roar to Mighty Woodward:
You know you're hot *&^% when you're cruzing Gratiot:
Ground Zero for Detroit, Campus Martius:
Chevy Chevelle is the parent car to the Monte, the Malibu and the El Camino. As money got tight, my dad stooped to driving station wagons and even, a VEGA!
1 comment:
Why is this the first result for wilbo wagons?
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