Vic Socotra

24 August 2009

The World’s Fastest Refrigerator

(Boss Cherry 1970 AMC AMX Muscle Car)

I just got back from the Bill Socotra Rambler Rally in Angola, Indiana. It will be Bill's last appearance, or at the very least, the last one that Mom will drive him to.

She already said as much, weeks ago, when this loomed on the horizon and we tried to figure out exactly how all the moving parts might fit together. The timing is a bit awkward; a lot of folks are on vacation, or better said, the event is part of several vacations.

One son is in Chicago, which is sort of on the way, if you consider adjacent states in the sprawling green Midwest to be close; the little city by the Bay is almost as far north as you can drive in Michigan’s lower peninsula without actually driving into the Straits of Mackinaw.

So, the adventure involved the coordination of the old folks, planes, rental cars and an eccentric aggregation of auto aficionados- wait, I think I am being redundant there- who adopted my Dad as a sort of totem, since he designed some of the cars that drove (or were trailered) to Angola, Indiana. There is no one else left, and he is fading.

I’ll break my usual custom and attach two photos this morning. There is one of the wacky Rambler crowd's better efforts- one is of a cherry 1970 American Motors AMX, and the other is a shot of the custom valve covers on the 390 cubic inch engine that includes the logo of the home appliance company that AMC owned at the time, and where my Dad later worked.

The wits call those cars "World's Fastest Refrigerators."

(Detail of the engine compartment of the AMX)

The owners are gentle people, though they have cores of spring steel. Most of them come from modest backgrounds, or this modest car company would not have been part of their lives.

So we will explore that little niche in American life, a place where people cling not just to their families and guns and religion, but to their now-ancient automobiles.

If you were expecting me to start off on a polemic about the criminal investigations they want to open against the CIA, you would be wrong. The damage has already been done out at Langley- I have talked to case officers- current and former- who cheerfully admit that they consider the possible requirement to Lawyer Up as part of each new task that comes across the desk.

You could not demoralize or render more impotent an organization more effectively than to suggest that their personal attorneys should walk them up to the Headquarters building from their cars in the morning, and ride with them on the way home in the evening.

I get so confused. Who are we trying to protect?

Whose Justice Department is this, anyway?

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