Then And Now

________________________________________________________________________________________________

If tailfins were wings
a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere
would get you into the sky

And a 1959 Cadillac
would have been
a jumbo jet
 

Those car existed in an era
when all American cars
had features that gave them
personality
—Consider the Mustang,
the Thunderbird
and the Dodge Charger—
and 
Honda was only a word
that rhymed with
Henry Fonda

 BUT

personality

could make those cars

dangerous or

—worse yet—

"gas guzzlers" 

AND THEN
along came an era
when American cars
were all "streamlined"
to improve gas mileage

Personality features
of American cars
were replaced with
smooth curves
to make
"aerodynamically sound"

BUT
that is just a fancy way
to say these cars were
lobotomized

In 2018
IRONY WEARS
HIGH HEEL SNEAKERS
because most families own SUV's
which are twice the size
of the legendary gas guzzlers.

The average gas mileage of
these behemoth station wagons
is approximately thirteen miles
to the gallon
which is no better than
the 1959 Cadillac
or
the 1957 Belvedere.

But is much worse in appearance:
Looking as if
the big fat class bully
swallowed the prettiest girl
in the school.
 

________________________________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes
THEN AND NOW
is the copyrighted property of LCSoL.

The cartoon is from  Harry Bliss.

The car images are from  Jay Pegg.

An earlier version of this page
—which I ultimately thought
to be embarassingly bad—
is  here 
________________________________________________________________________________________________