|
|||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||
  |
|||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
End of Year Thoughts (and where have all those great cars gone?)by Rafael Rodriguez ('71) Dear former classmates, colleagues, friends, not necessarily “friends, Romans, and countrymen…!” As the New Year approaches with this issue of the newsletter and we are asked if we want to reach out, even if the genius of inspiration is not doing its best, it is nice to be reminded that the calendar doesn’t stop and that it is time again to look back at our Lycée experience, and beyond it. The timing of this issue coinciding with the end of the year and consequently the beginning of a new one, 2013, it is time for reflection indeed. We are being bombarded with, although perhaps that’s a loaded term and reminded of might be more suitable, in any case the media talks a lot about the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling, making you wonder all of a sudden if whatever goes over the cliff crashes through a ceiling and if the latter is made of glass. Well, these have all negative connotations, making me crave some good news somewhere. Perhaps humanity is growing wiser as we now have on a screen in front of our faces all the tragedies of the world almost all the time, that is, if we are among those who still turn our TV on. Fortunately there’s some good stuff on NOVA and other channels, not always easy to find. Is the world really coming to an end according to the Maya calendar? Two articles appeared recently in the New York Times, one about Mayor Delanoë wanting to ban pre-1996 cars from Paris as an air quality measure, and last week’s on old car collectors, featuring photographs of old Citroens, one a DS Pallas near the Arc de Triomphe, and the other of a 2CV “Charleston” in the United States, and the young man who made it his business to bring back to life as many 2 CVs as possible. These were my cars for many years. We used to think that they were technologically advanced; now most cars have caught up with rack and pinion steering, hydraulic systems and inboard disc brakes, but since there are no Cits in the US since…er, 1972 (!) I now drive a German car; however my love for Citroen lasts --as I was quoted in Classic and Sports Cars in 2002, “fashion passes but style endures.” So I am worried that if City Hall gets its way in Paris there will be no more of the iconic and quintessential French Citroen automobiles that we were fond of. Perhaps they will still allow the 2CV rides for tourists that are offered today; otherwise you will have to come stateside to Saratoga in June or Bastille Day in New York City to catch a glimpse of that symbol of French culture. It is significant to note here that André Citroën was a friend of Henry Ford, and that both had the benevolent effect of providing a better quality of life to a generation by building an affordable means of transportation. I don’t think that the era of the automobile is over, but we should indeed walk more and take public transportation whenever possible. Hopefully there will be ways to offer other quality of life improvements. We now live in the era of telecommuting and remote shopping and home delivery, but the pleasure of steering an exciting work of engineering on wheels, alone or in the company of friends, is one that I will not pass up. Wishing you health, prosperity, peace and happiness in 2013 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||
|
|
|
||
