Farewell My Lovely

In 1927, Ford made the last Model T  and in 1936, The New Yorker published E.B White's love letter to the Model T  titled “Farewell My Lovely.”   As tribute to the 2009 passing of the American auto industry, marked by the nationalization of both General Motors and Chrysler, I excerpt from "Farewell My Lovely" below:

"I see by the new Sears Roebuck catalogue that it is still possible to buy an axle for a 1909 Model T Ford, but I am not deceived. The great days have faded, and the end is in sight. Only one page in the current catalogue is devoted to parts and accessories for the Model T; yet everyone remembers springtimes when the Ford gadget section was larger than men's clothing, almost as large as household furnishings. The last Model T was built in 1927, and the car is fading from what scholars call the American scene - which is an understatement, because to a few million people who grew up with it, the old Ford practically was the American scene. It was the miracle that God had wrought. And it was patently the sort of thing that could only happen once. Mechanically uncanny, it was like nothing that had ever come to the world before. Flourishing industries rose and fell with it. As a vehicle, it was hard working, commonplace, heroic; and it often seemed to transmit those qualities to the person who rode in it. My own generation identifies it with Youth, with its gaudy, irretrievable excitements; before it fades into the mist, I would like to pay it the tribute of the sigh that is not a sob, and set down random entries in a shape somewhat less cumbersome than a Sears Roebuck catalogue..."

Read  “Farewell My Lovely.”

Comments

[Noel Cunningham]

Patty, when I saw your header I thought this would be a paean to Sarah Palin.