Been getting a little more sleep lately. This doesn't mean I've been able to bury my conscience a little deeper -- or that there's been a reduction in the number of hostile Idaho noises outside in the early morning hours. Or, that I'm no longer drawn out and around in connection with various night-time crises.
[Coyote howling and Lion cries never bother me at all.] It means that my 20 year old grandson, Thomas, who with his mother [Maria, our oldest] and his little sister [Samantha], has lived with Eldri and Josie [my youngest] and me for going on six years now has finally -- finally --gotten his first vehicle. It wasn't easy. I'd rather do the Grand Canyon six times running -- literally -- than go through this again. And I was only a marginal player in the Burningly Intensive Socio-Drama. Firearms, which I know very well indeed, are basic and down-to-earth compared to cars. [Most gunowners and dealers are honest.] But, if there's anything that epitomizes the Larceny of Capitalism, it's the Used Car Gambling Strip. The odds in Reno are far, far more favorable to the human target/victim. Thomas, an Idaho State pre-med student and certainly the most easy-going member of our entire and generally turbulent family [sometimes attributed to the fact that he's one-half Mississippi Choctaw], has been saving money for a long, long time. Following a successful summer stint as an Upward Bound counselor at Idaho State, he finally accumulated the almost four thousand bucks he needed to do cash business. And that's when it all began. The Search. For the Gas-Eating Grail. A Used One. A Good One. A flood of newspaper and related ads and notices were soon descending on us from the very Four Directions -- like a hard-ice storm in North Dakota. Since Tom is a popular kid, peers of his -- of every ethnicity and degree of good sense or lack of it -- began arriving via our doorstep and telephone at all hours with a multitude of possibility-reports. Car talk filled the house and yard for most waking moments -- and deeply into the night. Going into the field day after day, Tom and friends traveled through virtually every used car lot in the Pocatello region. But he didn't jump precipitously. It simply isn't in his thoughtful, deliberate nature -- and, besides, he'd heard all sorts of used-car horror stories from my two sons -- John and Peter -- and plenty of them from me. After my first Teen motor love, an even-then ancient '29 Model A Ford coupe with incredible loyalty and power and stamina [we once fixed its distributor with a piece of fence wire], I had a number of heavy used-car disasters and, as soon as I could swing it, got on the new-vehicle-always track -- even if it took five years to pay the damn thing off. Tom looked at many and rejected most. On one, about which he was becoming serious, he came to me as the Ultimate Authority [ and much about this I do NOT know] and, on the basis of his description alone, I could legitimately nix that sale. On another occasion, we went together to look at The High Probable. This turned out to be a sleek, freshly repainted little [red] sports car. Crowded with other used vehicles [most looking very used indeed], it sat in a tiny, hard-scrabble lot under a bedraggled tree of some kind. The salesmen had gone off somewhere and the mechanic -- who looked like he'd bathed once as a baby -- came out to sing the praises of Tom's interest. Cynically, I looked under It and wasn't surprised to see a big, dark puddle of Leak. At that very moment, a battered vehicle drove up with two really scrubby characters -- one of whom yelled coarsely that he wanted his money back. Tom and I left, telling the mechanic, "We'll think this over." But, of course, we didn't have to. Doing my Prophet thing, I had consistently been telling Tom that his best shot might well lie with a private individual. And after the near-disaster with Red Sports -- and with the maelstrom still continuing unabated around us -- he began checking out those individual ads in earnest. And then, one day! There was a thing in the paper from a private person who had a '92 Jeep Cherokee. I have a '98 Cherokee that's been perfect for us -- 4WD and all -- and, more than that, SUVs [Sports Utility Vehicles] generally are in-models for Tom's peer group. So this struck resonance -- cautiously so -- with all of us. He hopped over immediately to see that one -- finding it in a nice section of town. The owner had, after 105,000 miles, decided to get a new Jeep Cherokee. The vehicle was clean, tight, solid. Encouragingly, Tom noted that one of its stickers was Machinists' Union. I had suggested to Tom that he check the underside to make certain it hadn't been destructively "cow-boyed" in off-road stuff. Tom did, and that was all unmarred, OK. The owner seemed fine to Tom and even suggested that, if serious, he take it to a mechanic for a prior-purchase checkover. That night, everyone talked this one over -- optimistically. The next day, Tom took the Cherokee to a peer buddy -- a sharp, aspiring mechanic who pronounced it Fit and Fine. Effectively negotiating a somewhat lower price, Tom made a basic purchase commitment and, that evening, the owner called to make arrangements for a meeting at the bank always used by our family members. I took the call and the seller and I, quickly and intuitively determining a prime mutual interest, talked congenially for 20 minutes about our respective firearms -- each of us pleased that the other was into traditional Western rifles. I knew then for certain that he was OK. Next afternoon, we met at our bank -- the most traditional Mormon bank in the whole heavily LDS Eastern Idaho region and strictly Idaho-owned. Whenever possible, our family does business with Indians and other minorities and with Mormons -- all of whom we trust -- and often there is an overlap between ethnicities and LDS. Tom paid, I left my Jeep in the safety of the Bank's secure parking-place, and we went off together with the former owner -- in his new Jeep -- to his home for the '92. It was my first sighting of The Prize and it looked great. And there indeed right on it was the Machinists' Union logo. And maintenance stickers indicated it had been serviced every 3,000 miles! And the final reassurance of all: The man and his whole family -- and all of their cats and the dog -- gathered to tell the Jeep a very special Adios and to wish it well. Our kind of folks. Honest. The proud new owner driving, we headed off to our family's [Mormon] insurance man -- where, with Tom's solid Idaho State GPA, a good deal was worked out for him pronto. I know Tom -- and all of us -- have done very well. And it's indeed a great vehicle -- with lots of good and effective life to go. And I am getting a hell of a lot more sleep now -- even under Capitalism. Question: Under socialism -- then what? Well, there'll be cars. And kids will still want'em -- and quicker than yesterday. Prices should be better -- and wages, if there are wages, should be a whole lot greater. But we'll still need to find honest sellers. Always and forevermore. Hunter Gray [Hunterbear] www.hunterbear.org (strawberry socialism) Protected by NaŽshdoŽiŽbaŽiŽ _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
