The media is ablaze with the breaking story that GM has declared bankruptcy today in New York city. As if that is breaking news. I suppose that by breaking news, they mean to say offically legal news. That is all anyone heard said when GM was mentioned in a story. This has been long coming down the path. Except now it is legally official in court. I had to finally turn off the radio because I found myself diving deep into an emotional pool filled with everything great that used to be GM.
I was born in the decade of the 1960's. I lived in a neigborhood where every kid I knew, and there were a gaggle of us, had a parent or relative that directly or indirectly had a job related to the automotive giants that were GM, Ford and Chrysler. Every house on simply the three streets around my house had someone tied very closely to an auto company. In fact, this entire subdivision, I would guess from my current adult perspective, was built to house nothing but families and I would continue to guess they all had a direct or indirect tie to the iconic automobile. If not one of the Big Three, then Detroit Edison, Borden Milk, Hudson's Department Store, Kresges, Lamphere Schools, Circle Drug Pharmacy (family owned by the actual phramacist) , Kowalski meat store (owned by the people slicing the meat and ringing the sales) , Joe's Party Store (this Joe was a middle aged Italian man who seemed to live in the old house that was converted into a predecessor to today's convenience store. He watched us kids like a hawk when we came into the store. We were afraid of lingering at the candy too long for fear he would yell at us and not let us back in to get the coveted 5 cent, foot long Big Daddy bubble gum so we could stick the whole thing in our mouths at once so we would not have to carry or stuff it into our pockets!)
I digress. My whole bucolic childhood is embedded in this ideal world that the automakers helped build. Every summer I had no care in the world except when a thunderstorm passing through threatened to ruin our nightly came of kick the can when the streetlights came on. Even then, a thunderstorm could mean the potential of the sewers not draining quickly enough to allow the streets to flood, turning the street into a river of water up to a kid's knees, with the crazy idea we could swim or float in the warm rain waters with our clothes on or really turn our bikes into boats and splash and frolic for what seemed like hours in kid time even though in adult time it was probably minutes until the drains caught up with the overload of rain.
One such family lived on the next street from our in a house positioned exactly in the same layout of the street. In fact, the street address was exactly the same: 28636. Yes, mail is still delivered to my mom's house from the Freda Ct address. Anyway, the family was the Carlson's. They were Wally and Mona with two older daughters named Debbie and Cindy. If I remember correctly, Debbie was a year younger and Cindy was three years younger than Michael my brother. Somewhere along the way, Mike's friend Bill Gersh dated the older one because his sister was friends with Debbie. I do not know, I did not really care about the social aspect of the girls except for when they got to drive their father's gorgeous new GM cars. Now, we were a Chrysler family. My maternal grandfather worked for Chrysler so my dad, being a Rockwell employee and having no specific loyalty to a Big three pledged his loyalty to Chrysler. Which, ironically was puzzling because my paternal grandfather worked for Ford. I never asked why. I never really cared to ask why actually, until now, as I write this. For now, right now, I am thinking it is strange we at least never changed between the two companies. Never. As long as my car memory holds firm, my father always bought Chrysler products. I did ask my mom the reason why. My maternal grandfather worked for Chrysler, so my father wanted to show his loyalty to the company on my grandfather's behalf. Makes sense, even when no employee discounts were given back in the day. You simply bought the product based on loyalty. Simple. You worked diligently, received a decent wage, saved and bought the product you helped create. Now, that concept is not so simple. Venture into a parking lot of one of the various car companies today, right now, and you will indeed see badges of the competitor's adorning the cars. Oh, the people who own them will come to their defense by saying they are contract employees or some other lame excuse. If that is the case, then why are you working there now? Why not just leave and go to some other place. That is not so simple. They will also throw out the excuse the car is built in the U.S. Sorry, this is a thin veil. The most of the money made is still channeled back to the foreign country where the company is headquartered.
