The Cadillac
Through the years, Dad often spoke fondly of "The Cadillac". Mom and Dad were married in 1950, just a few years after the end of WWII. The economic boom was about to hit, but it was still tough times. They rented a flat in Montreal, but couldn't afford furniture. The dinner table was an ironing board that swung down from the wall. They sat on crates.
Dad bought a 1941 Nash for $50. They always parked it on a hill because the starter didn't work. He swore so much at the car that Mom thought he would surely go to hell upon his demise.
One day in 1951, he saw an old Cadillac for sale. Although it was about 16 years old, it was no ordinary old car. It was like new. It was big and black and beautiful. It was a custom-built 1934 All Weather Phaeton. The convertible top could be opened half-way or completely and there was a roll-up window between the chauffeur and passenger compartments. There were cushions for your feet.
The car was ordered in 1934 by a prominent Montreal Lawyer and delivered in 1936. New, it had cost $8,500.00. This, at a time when a new Dodge could be had for about $650.00.
It was truly one-of-a-kind, having been ordered without the dual side-mounted spares. 1934 Cadillacs normally had spare tires mounted into the front fenders, one on each side. Because of the customer's preference, the fenders were specially crafted without the tire notches and the spares were mounted on the back, behind an actual leather-bound trunk.
It had separate keys for the chauffeur and passenger compartments. It also had a brand-new engine. The car was initially used for two years before the owner fell ill. It was put into storage for all the time since and the estate had the car cleaned-up and put into shape for sale, including the new engine. They wanted to get back at least what they had spent to refurbish it and that was $700.00. Dad bought the car.
Mom thought he had gone nuts. "We didn't have two cents to rub together and he bought a Cadillac."
On a long weekend, they took a friend along on a trip to Toronto (old highway 2) in the rain. It turned out to be a trip from hell. They got lost and they got stuck in the mud. After four flats, they needed to buy a set of tires. The tires, while looking new with deep treads, were the age of the car. Nobody had tires to fit the car and they eventually had to buy truck tires.
They enjoyed the car. One day, while driving on a highway near Ormstown, Dad slowed to let a car of youngsters pass. Passing the classic old Cadillac, one yelled out "Get a Horse!" Dad showed them what the Caddy could do and flew by them at over a hundred miles an hour. The three-speed Cadillac was capable of 90 mph in second gear (thats 145 km/hr to us young-uns)!
One day, a neighbour's kid swung an axe and caught a fender. It only scratched the paint.
Where they lived, they couldn't keep a car on the street in winter. They made some calls and, when they found a reasonably-priced garage, Dad drove the car over. When he parked it in line, it stuck out about four feet from the other cars. The garage owner excalaimed: "That's not a car, that's an automobile. I don't have room for that."
Around this time, the landlord raised the rent (he probably saw the Cadillac). Mom and Dad couldn't afford the new rent and had to move in with my Aunt Martha.
Dad sold the car to Bill White, a work colleague and friend. Bill, in turn, sold it to a doctor from Westmount, who took it to a classic car show in the States and won second prize.
Today, the value of that car (restored) would likely be somewhere beyond a million dollars. The stories about it from Dad. . . . Priceless.
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In 2009, Stuart McLean wrote the short story ‘The Morning Paper’.
Basically, he saw newspapers as a binding agent for society. He postulated that, when newspapers are on every street corner, we all absorb the material and conversation is thereby enabled. Even if one doesn’t read the daily paper, the fact that so many of us do, leads to the non-readers absorbing the material by a kind of osmosis.
Interesting thinking.
He goes on to explain the flip side, which is; without the daily newspaper, we risk losing that ‘fellowship’. If the webmasters get their way, we will all retreat to our own personal ‘circles’ of news and information, and we will all be more and more alienated from each other. It is a ‘not-so-subtle’ change to the fabric of society that is at stake.
I found Mr. McLean’s story to be particularly relevant to today’s world, especially in light of the recent U.S. presidential elections.
Mr. McLean touched on something bigger though. It’s not only newspapers. We are becoming isolated in other ways too.
For example, popular music today is so varied, with so many genres and sub genres that it’s hard to follow everything. In the old days, we all listened to one or two radio stations. In those days, if a song was popular, everybody knew the song. Today, there are popular songs and popular artists who I have never even heard. How can we all have a conversation about music?
Even cars are developing toward a point where we won’t be interacting on the roads. We’ll be riding in autonomously controlled machines. When two cars meet at a street corner, we won’t be nodding or waving the other guy on, the cars will communicate and decide who goes first.
And what about television? First we had two channels, then two hundred! I remember a time when morning discussions around the water cooler started with reviews of last night’s ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ or ‘Carol Burnett’ or ‘Star Trek’ or ‘Mash’. Those days are over. Our son just cancelled his TV service. He hasn’t watched TV in over a year.
Today, the news we read or hear, especially on internet 'news' sites or social media, is just as likely to be 'fake' as real.
Stuart McLean was no dummy.
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