Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, July 8, 1988
Opinion
Oh, joy, the search
for the perfect auto
Over the past
weekend several
important and
newsworthy
events happened:
A United States
warship mistak
enly shot down an
Iranian jetliner in
the Persian Gulf
killing all 290 pas
sengers abroad;
Attorney General
Barbara
Jones
Edwin Meese announced his resignation
after being cleared from any wrong
doing while in office by an independent
council investigation; and my parents
bought me a new car. Well it’s not really
new, but close enough. This might not
seem to some as a monumental event,
but then again maybe I should back up a
bit and fill you all in on the whole story.
First I must explain a little about my
parental unit. My parents firmly believe
in two principles that they never stray
from: One is that regardless of the
amount of money one has, children are
not to be spoiled. They must work for
things they want and not just be given
them. The second principle is that a car
is a mode of transportation for trans
porting one from Point A to Point B,
not material possession. As a result our
family’s driveway resembles a used car
lot. In my family you stop driving a car
when the car no longer runs. My Dad
still speaks proudly of a car we once
owned that was appropriately dubbed
“the Vomit Commit,” which he bought
the from a friend for $50 and drove it
for two years.
A lot of kids, when embarking on
their freshman year of college, are given
cars as graduation presents by their par
ents. Well Bob and Barb Jones were not
those parents. It was entirely out of the
question. “But all my friends are getting
to take cars to school,” I pleaded to no
avail. My parents were not the type to
fall for that sort of logic. However it
turned out not to be the tragedy that I
was sure it was goinjlj to be since I was
living on campus and could easily access
everything on foot.
My sophmore year I again pleaded
for a car. Instead I got a bike. Not a new
bike, but a friend of my Mom’s Sears
Jiffy 3-speed with goober handle bars
and a flower basket hanging off the
front. I was horrified. I was going to be
living off campus with no car. The near
est grocery store was about three-
fourths of a mile away. To get my gro
ceries home I would have to steal a gro
cery cart, .cross over a busy four-lane
road, and push it all the way back to my
apartment — a very humbling experi
ence. I would always try to look as if I
had forgotten where I had parked my
car. My friends called me the “bag lady.”
What are friends for?
Then came my junior year and I felt
assured that it was going to be my lucky
year. Well, there was good news and bad
news. Yes, I was going to have a car to
take to school with me. The bad news
was the car that I was to take. Close your
eyes and imagine every student’s idea of
a nightmare car. Yes that’s right a sta
tion wagon! Not just any station wagon,
though. It was the same station wagon
that my parents bought when I was 11.
It had 130,000 miles on it and definitrly
looked its age. Now, imagine the worst
color imaginable. Right again ... Yel
low! Since the car had been collecting
grease in the driveway and had not been
driven in months, I felt assured that the
old bomb wouldn’t start. Well my luck
continued and the Banana Mobile (as
my friends called it) started on the first
try with a sizable cloud of blue smoke
bellowing from the tailpipe. Lucky me,
right?
So off I went cruising in the Banana
Mobile. Now logically considering the
age and mileage of the car, I knew the
humiliation of driving this car would be
short lived, and I looked forward with
excitement to its dying day. Well it lived
and it lived. It is the eternal automobile
and I felt for sure that this car would see
my death before its own ultimate de
mise. I drove it my entire junior and se
nior year, and just when I thought I
would have to hire a contract killer to
get rid of the vessel, it happened. While
I was home for the weekend this spring
my Dad discovered that the car had
some major problems and deemed it
unsafe to drive. That was the happiest
day of my life. I was finally going to get
a car, or so I thought.
Sunday rolled around and no new car
had materialized. My parents handed
me the keys to the maxi-van. It is not
merely a van, mind you, but a MAXI-
van — 3 feet longer that your average
van. I stared at them in disbelief. I once
thought that yo ( u would have to work
really hard to find a car that is less cool
than the wagon, but let me tell you a
white paneled maxi-van is about as close
to uncool as one can get. “You will have
to drive it for a couple of weeks or so
until we find something else.” Well the
weeks turned to months and I was be
ginning to think I was cursed. But in
deed it happened and the rest is history.
I now have my very own car — and it’s
not yellow!
Barbara Jones is a senior journalism
major and a columnist for The Battal
ion.
IADKS N«> GtNUB'tN 1
THE IMPERIAL,
PWSIKNStf
Some official creative solutions
for our inconvenient drought
Dr. P
The nation is
suffering a
drought. You can
tell because when
you look at the in
tellectual page of
USA Today, the
weather map is all
red, day after day.
It looks like a
John Birch map
of China during
the Korean War.
I must admit,
comprehending a
Donald
Kaul
I have trouble fully
drought. To a city
dweller a drought is at worst an incon
venience, at best a mixed blessing. Yes
the grass dies and the grocery bill goes
up, but the baseball game never gets
rained out, picnic weather is plentiful
and fleas disappear. For the farmer,
however, it is a disaster of biblical pro
portions.
Which is another reason I don’t un
derstand the lure of farming. When the
prices are up, the crops are bad and you
don’t have anything to sell. If the crops
and prices both should be good one
year and you do make a little money,
you’re encouraged to buy more land,
going into debt and eventual bank
ruptcy. Should nothing else go wrong,
you get hail. This is a good time?
I don’t think they should send white-
collar criminals to jail; they should sen
tence them to farm for a living. It would
cut down on embezzling.
But whining about it isn’t going to do
any good. We need solutions. 1 called
around to some national leaders and,
promising them anonymity to protect
their innocence, asked them what
should be done. Here are their anony
mous replies:
A Highly Placed Administration Of fi
cial: “Well, I’m old enough to remember
the last great drought, the one that
caused Henry Fonda to move to Califor
nia in a truck with Jane Darwell — she
was his mother, you know — so I know
how these things can be.
“But what you have to remember is
that when we took office the water table
was 15 percent below the Soviet
man.
it.
squash — we can find a way toll
“Not with massive federal prof
but with individual effort, at thei
pense of the poor. I mean, if woi
comes to worst, we can leave our spir
klers on all night, see what I mean?Cn|
ative solution sort of thing. I hopetl
won’t become a campaign issue.'
A Well-Placed Democratic Offc, ^
“We had a similar situation in Massadil moV(
setts four years ago. It stopped rainill nent
in Brockton, threatening the [xte j e 8 K
crop. We had some hard choices
make, but we didn’t flinch. We setup
committee to study the problem at
come up with recommendations.Wi
a month it rained on Brockton and!
O’Neill’s garden. What we did forMij
sachusetts we can do for the rest off;
°
will
i Ocec
country.
WP&GVIA&S
Union’s. Thre previous administration
had allowed a rain gap to develop so a
great deal of our early effort was in
closing that. If the effort has lagged in
recent months it’s because of the Demo
crat-controlled Congress, but I’m here
to tell you that I am not going to allow
this nation to become a second-class wa
ter power.
“Next week my chief or staff, what-
zisname, is going to announce a rider to
the contra-aid bill that will provide ad
equate moisture for each and every
state in the union, regardless of voting
patterns. It is based on a principle we
put in effect when I was governor of
California: If you’re short of water,
steal some. We’re calling it ‘Operation
Canada Dry.’ Excuse me now, I have to
take my nap.”
A Lowly Placed Administration Offi
cial: “You mean we’re in Drought City?
Golly. Didn’t know. Been in and out of
the office a lot lately. Campaigning sort
of thing. Have they found out what’s
causing it? No rain? Congress probably
has rainfall tied up in committee.
“The way I see it, it’s kind of a lead
ership sort of thing. Not that the presi
dent isn’t providing leadership, of
course, but I think that with my experi
ence — ambassador to China, director
of the CIA, Republican national chair
man, Skull and Bones at Yale, business-
An Unplaced Democratic
“The Bible says seven years of fd
seven years of famine. We’ve hadsej V\
' . C en .
years of Reaganomics, now where’s:
feast? The fields are drying up. i: p I() j
throats of farmers are parched. BlaB Pres
and women are being discrimina ^
against. Three hundred thousand |x| j e( . t! .
pie without health insurance. FifttB Star
percent of the babies born withoutpi enei
natal care. One in five children dr ^
finish high school. Twenty percent | se a r
our children born in poverty. tibil
“I say that if we can make it rain
plea
som
the plain we can reduce the pain. Wf proj
the people who can make a differed D-d
There have been seven years of theft
gan drought, but don’t surrender ft
is on the way.”
Those all seemed like interestingsc
tions, more or less, but I like better"
Secretary of Agriculture Richard l
said the other day. Asked at a heart
what government should do abouD
drought, he said:
“Pray for rain.’
Amen.
Copyright 1988, Tribune Media Services,Inc
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
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Southwest Journalism Conference
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Mark Nair, Opinion Page Editor
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Cindy Milton, News Editors
Anthony Wilson, Sports Editor
Jay Janner, Art Director
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BLOOM COUNTY
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