Great Again

 

MAGA, the political slogan Make America Great Again does not really have history in mind, a Time when we were better than now, or a definition of greatness. Maybe the five year period from summer 1945 to summer 1950 - - ?, after WW2 when we were Earth's most powerful and newly influential military force and before we were drawn into the Korean War? 

Maybe a Time of prosperity for us such as WW1 armistice 11 November 1918 to the October 29, 1929 Black Friday collapse of the world economy into the poverty of the Great Depression? Or maybe a Time of seeming Peace for us, from that WW1 armistice 11 November 1918 to the start of WW2 for us 4 December 1941 when the German Holocaust had already been underway for several years of unspeakable horror in Europe? 

Great would be a subjective call, not only because every Time is a passing phase that cannot be arrested and held in place, but especially because in every Time there were those who were experiencing their relative greatness and those who were experiencing oppression. Greatness is in the mind of Whoever was living big at the Time, but especially in the fantasies of Whoever was not there but imagines what it must have been like for those on Top.

It's all trivial nonsense except for the Buicks. The two greatest cars of all Time were the 1948 Buick Eight Super sedan, a pre-war carryover, and the 1953 Buick Super sedan, the year Buick switched from the OHV straight eight to the new OHV V8 (except for the Buick Special, which continued the straight eight for one more year).

These are only a couple of the important facts that St Peter will ask before he Either presses the button that swings open the pearly gates, Or pulls the lever that drops open the chute into the fires of Hell.

In my Time involved with their family, Linda's father had four Buick cars. A 2-tone green 1950 Buick Super sedan that I rode in once; a dark green 1953 Buick Super sedan with a white top, that I drove many Times and that was a car of my dreams; a silver 1958 Buick Roadmaster sedan that I drove once, roundtrip Panama City to Jacksonville Beach in 1960 and that cost an astronomical $7 to fill the gas tank, and a white 1961 Buick Invicta hardtop sedan with red leather seats, that he owned while we were in Japan, and I never got to drive.

To make America great again would be to turn back Time, to turn Time back to the evening the searchlights in the sky heralded the arrival of the 1948 Buick in the showroom on Harrison Avenue in downtown Panama City, and go from there. An eternal America of 1948 and 1953 Buick Super sedans and, in Time, hardtop coupes.

My nonsense for the day.

T89&c

pics: 1953 Buick Super two door hardtop for sale online