When senior executives from Detroit’s Big Three recently took their begging bowls to Washington they were vilified for using company planes. Once, much humbler individuals used this form of transport.
The short-haul airliner (Alas, Relucent Reader, I’ve forgotten the type) was emblazoned with North American Rockwell’s logo and colours. Half the seats had been removed to increase leg room for the press party. In the aisle a polished wood box, somewhat larger than a Hammond organ, proved to be a well stocked bar opened while we were still climbing quite steeply. We were bound for Statesboro, Georgia, where I ate grits with red-eye gravy for the first time.
Ostensibly we were visiting a factory manufacturing control valves. In reality we were observing the latest skirmishes in the American Civil War. The factory managers all appeared to be New Yorkers who bitterly resented Statesboro. On the bus from the airport one of them commented: “You’ll see the town has a railway running through it. This is so lots of people can live on the wrong side of the tracks.”
Later were were told how to obtain a driving licence – necessary if you move to another state. “You pull up at a drive-in window in the town hall. You hand over your application form and five dollars. You’re told to drive round the town hall and pull up again to pick up your licence. Which would have been just fine except that my neighbour was driving the car.” Lots of sipping whisky that evening brought more of these stories which – inevitably – I have forgotten. Together with anything I learned about control valves.
The short-haul airliner (Alas, Relucent Reader, I’ve forgotten the type) was emblazoned with North American Rockwell’s logo and colours. Half the seats had been removed to increase leg room for the press party. In the aisle a polished wood box, somewhat larger than a Hammond organ, proved to be a well stocked bar opened while we were still climbing quite steeply. We were bound for Statesboro, Georgia, where I ate grits with red-eye gravy for the first time.
Ostensibly we were visiting a factory manufacturing control valves. In reality we were observing the latest skirmishes in the American Civil War. The factory managers all appeared to be New Yorkers who bitterly resented Statesboro. On the bus from the airport one of them commented: “You’ll see the town has a railway running through it. This is so lots of people can live on the wrong side of the tracks.”
Later were were told how to obtain a driving licence – necessary if you move to another state. “You pull up at a drive-in window in the town hall. You hand over your application form and five dollars. You’re told to drive round the town hall and pull up again to pick up your licence. Which would have been just fine except that my neighbour was driving the car.” Lots of sipping whisky that evening brought more of these stories which – inevitably – I have forgotten. Together with anything I learned about control valves.
