Eerie Experiences

A note to the small, but loyal band of Disaffected Musings readers: my wonderful wife, my amazing niece, my sweet sister and I just returned from a small family vacation during which it was “impossible” to post.

 

About a week ago I had an uncontrollable urge to do an internet search on someone with whom I once worked and who was (past tense) a friend. I have not seen or spoken to this person in 25+ years. Two days ago, without my mentioning this person at all, my sister told me that someone who knew all three of us told her that this former friend died earlier this year. The news was sad, but the timing was particularly unnerving. The first time I did the internet search nothing out of the ordinary resulted. After I was told of his passing, another internet search unearthed an obituary.

The same thing happened to me last year. Out of the blue I had a strong urge to talk to a friend with whom I had not spoken in quite some time. When dialing his phone number resulted in reaching some business unknown to me, an internet search revealed this friend’s obituary.

 

On a lighter, but also weird vein: my sister spent hours playing on a poker machine one day during this vacation. Somewhat exasperated I asked, “When you get a royal flush you’ll stop, right?” To which my sister replied, “Sure.” Not so much as a minute later, this happened:

Yes, that is TWO royal flushes in three hands. The four of us howled with laughter and my sister did, indeed, stop playing.

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Dissonance is not usually a good thing, but in the White House it can be very destructive even if some/much of the agenda has the potential to be beneficial.

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I am committing to a moratorium on photos of C2 Corvettes. How long this lasts is anyone’s guess, but I will make a sincere effort. This blog has gained some followers, but for many of those followers when I look at their blogs to reciprocate those blogs are very “one-note.” I do not want to have a “one-note” blog so even though the emphasis is cars I will try to refrain from so many postings and photos about C2 Corvettes, at least for awhile.

That is a photo by yours truly of a magnificent 1930 DuPont Model G convertible. How many of you knew that there was such a thing as a DuPont automobile? The famous company did not manufacture the cars, but a member of the family started and ran the company that did. The DuPont family has quite a history with automobiles. In 1914 Pierre S. DuPont bought stock in General Motors and was named to the Board of Directors in 1915. He later became Chairman and President of GM. By purchasing a significant amount of company stock DuPont helped stabilize GM in the wake of its near demise after William C. Durant’s second reign as head of the company.

DuPont Motors was founded by E. Paul DuPont. DuPont Marine Motors Company, founded by E. Paul, manufactured motors for the US Navy during World War I and that experience gave him the itch to start an automobile company. For part of the company’s history the cars were manufactured in Delaware, home to the big company, but the cars were also manufactured in Pennsylvania and at an Indian Motorcycle Company factory in Massachusetts that DuPont purchased in 1930. These cars were not for the masses selling for between $4,000 and $6,000 when first offered to the public in 1920.

Although DuPont Motors manufactured automobiles for more than a decade only about 530 cars were produced. As was the case with many independent automakers, DuPont was sunk by the Great Depression and production ended in 1932.

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Hoping that the sources I’m using have this correct, on this day in 1959 the Chevrolet Corvair was introduced. I have written about the Corvair on multiple occasions, including here. For its day the Corvair was a revolutionary design for American cars. Paradoxically, it was also the doom for rear-engined cars in America.

What many people don’t know is that, at first, the Corvair was popular. For its first six model years (1960-1965) total Corvair sales were nearly 1.7 million units. After the introduction of the Mustang and the publication of Unsafe At Any Speed, sales declined significantly. For the last four model years (1966-1969) total sales were approximately 159,000.

I will not wade into the debate about the Corvair’s worthiness as an automobile because, frankly, I don’t know enough to do so. The car was “exonerated” by at least two independent investigations that came way too late to save the car. I do know that I am a big fan of the styling of the second generation cars (1965-1969) like this:

From hotrod205.wordpress.com a picture of a 1966 Corvair.