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By EUGENE MCCARTHY
Rappahannock News
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Cultural historians write of the love affair of Americans with the automobile, I am an exception.
I may have had a minor thing going with the first car I owned, a ’35 Chevrolet two-door, (it was called a coach, a designation trans- s ferred from a buggy design i that was roughly comparj--, ble). I bought the car second hand in 1937 and kept it until 1949, when having been elected to the House of Representatives, I reluctantly abandoned it, as not quite up to the trip to Washington, and possibly, in the exuberance of having just been elected to national miblic office, as unbecoming to my new dignity.
From that year on whatever affection I had built up for the automobile gradually faded — for Fords, Chryslers, various General Motors cars and two American Motors products — all American built. I tried all sizes and shapes, two-door, four door, station wagon, etc. Totem animal names I tested, the Impala, the Skylark and others, and other names which are supposed to indicate the character of the machine as well as of the driver: “Imperials”, Ambassadors, Furies, Citations, Electras and soon.
Despite disappointments and dangers, I stuck with American made cars. I received warnings that under some conditions the spring on the starter of the car I owned might break, leaving the car at full throttle. The warning came a week after the vary thing had happened as 1 was driving home from church. I received notices of possible defective brakes and steering assmeblies and new and more -comprehensive warranties, which always seemed to have expired just before the warranted parts broke down or malfunctioned.
Finally this year, anticipating the purchase of a new car, I decided to go foreign.
I was moved in part to this decision by a notice my daughter had received advising her that the American
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