Ok if an old girl pokes her nose in?
Allen. before I was married and moved away to become a smallholder farmer I worked at the Nissan Datsun dealership in Newmarket, Auckland (NZ). The 240z's and the 260z's were awesome motor vehicles and I managed to sneak a ride sometimes when one of the mechanics took one out on a road test. We used to call them 24 ounce and 26 ounce Datsuns and to my mind they represent everything that is good in a real sportscar.
While I was working at the dealership I purchased a 1977 120Y for Mum using my staff discount and when Mum gave up driving when she turned 80 the 120Y came back to me. Now my daughter is driving it and she loves it.
With the two cars my daughter owned before the Datsun, the first one caught fire due to a fault in the catalytic convertor, and the second ended up being towed to the scrapyard when the main CPU for the electronic everything failed.
Until I drove the 120Y as my regular motorcar all my cars had been built in the 1950s or earlier. I don't trust a car that can't be fixed with a Swiss Army knife and a couple of bits of wire on the side of the road. it seems stupid to me that my daughter's last car would have cost more than it was worth to repair just because some Smartie (for Americans read M&M) with wires on it inside the black box decided to fail.
If I was younger and had the energy I would have had her tow the thing home and I would have converted it over to mechanical points ignition and put 4 SU (Skinner's Union) or Stromberg CD carbys on it instead of all the magic electronic nonsense.
Growing up all my cars sprouted extra carburrettors and I used to be a whizz at getting them dialed in with a piece of tubing stuck in my ear so I could listen to the induction sound.
Don't get me wrong I think some technology is good. Being able to discuss stuff with people on the other side of the world is great and for me the internet is one big encyclopedia. Mind you all the computers I've ever owned have been built up from other peoples' cast offs and have generally cost me no more than $NZ50.00 to setup. Everytime the latest tech craze for the latest whatever comes out, what is now considered to be old hat becomes almost worthless. By staying a couple of steps behind the technology I don't find it difficult at all to own useful tech for almost free. Oh and I use Linux too.
Thinking back on when I worked at the Nissan Datsun dealership I rode to work most days on my 1954 Matchless 350 single. My last bike before my doctor told me, 'No more motorcycles', was a Suzuki 1990s 500 twin. Now if my Matchbox had broken down, - not that it ever did, - I knew for sure that I could have got it running again on the side of the road. With the Suzuki I was never that confident and fortunately it never let me down, but if it had I knew that I would be up that certain creek without a paddle.
When my kids were small they used to ask me, 'Tell us about the
olden days when you were little'. So I would tell them about trams and how the railways used steam locomotives. About how both their grandads and their granduncles and their Nana (my Mum) worked on the railways. About how toys weren't plastic, but made from cast iron or tinplate. And about how the local dairy farmers could move their cows along the main road near Nana's house because there was so little traffic. (By the time my children were born the dairy farms had disappeared under a sea of houses and the traffic was so heavy that trying to move a herd of cows along that road would have resulted in bloody slaughter!).
Being not exactly wealthy except in quality of life we didn't have television and even now my adult children aren't particularly interested in watching the 'gogglebox'. Radio though is a different matter and National Radio here is still wonderfully rich with documentaries, radio plays, intelligent discussion of the issues of the day and music that is actually worth listening to.
And no advertising!
Yes I know I'm an old fashioned girl and because of my religious beliefs I look like one too (no I'm not Amish). But as far as I can see when I look at the world I haven't noticed people being any happier for all their tearing around, living on credit and trying to sooth themselves by acquiring more and more possessions.
When I had the 'good job' as a mental health professional I owned an apartment which I rented out and I had all the usual credit cards and store cards. I'm not really sure if I was happy because I was working too long and too hard to ever really find out.
Then I became ill, had to take early retirement and it all came crashing down. That was over ten years ago and if you asked me now if I miss that life I'd tell you, 'No.' Definitely No.
I should have just by-passed all that sweat and heartache, all those hours of study and exams and just come to live here in the country. The simple truth is the old values and ways of doing things were best and no matter how large the army of social workers and mental health professionals the problems with Western society can't be fixed so long as money is the sole measure of what things are held to be worth.
