I have resigned myself to the fact that few people younger than this dinosaur
give the slightest rip about deep historical study/knowledge. I have come to find
humor in the total ignorance of the masses and play it up any chance I get.
Last night I drove my truck to our weekly Model T shop night:
On the way, a 30-ish woman of burgeoning proportions was pacing me in a 20-year-
old Cadillac sedan, holding a phone toward her open window, taking photos. She had
an angry scowl on her face, and after putting the phone down on the seat, began yelling
at me, with lots of arm gesticulation to go with the facemaking. You cannot hear anything
but the truck when riding in it, so I could not hear a thing shen said. Open reaching a red
light a mile or so on, she came up beside me and I could now hear her ranting about brake
lights and being unsafe on the road. Since I had not touched my brakes in the entire time
she had been alongside me, I knew she was one of "those people", so when she got on the
brake lights part of the rant, I told her that vehicles this old didn't have brakes, hence no brake
lights. This really set her off, and when the subject came to vehicles like this being locked up
in museums, I thought I'd take the silliness to the next level and test the depth of her historical
knowledge. She asked me if I was the original owner, and I said, "No, but I am the second
owner, and that this truck was originally owned by Abraham Lincoln". She again went off
on my truck being a clear and present danger to all of humanity and never batted an eye
about the obvious gap in historical possibility. I imagine those who encountered her over
the next day got an earful about the stupid man she encountered, driving Abraham Lincoln's
truck with no brakes or brake lights .....
"Duty above all else except Honor"