Richard Stuebi: Auto-psy

Lately, I've been listening a lot on my iPod to a number of pop songs from the late 1960's: "Wichita Lineman", "Love Is Blue", "Everybody's Talkin'", "To Sir With Love", "Classical Gas" and so on. These are some of the AM radio songs of my youth, sitting in the back seat of the car while watching the scenery go by. My parents' cars were always big and always American - Detroit steel. Although we did own a few Ford cars, my dad generally favored General Motors products: typically Chevy Impalas in my earliest memories, escalating to Cadillacs by the end of his too-short life. In addition to the music from forty years ago, I remember most of those long-ago cars very well. For some reason, circa 1968, I vividly recall the first time I saw a seat belt, whose buckle was ornamented with the blue rectagonal GM logo, and its motto "Mark of Excellence". At the time, partly because of my dad's loyalty to their cars (how could he be wrong?), I assumed that GM indeed did make superior automobiles. But ... (link)