The Good Parent - Giving Your Children What They Need, Not What They Want

Towards the end of the classic 1971 film, "Willie Wonka and The Chocolate Factory", based on the book of the same name, the ususally affable Mr. Wonka flies into a rage at Charlie and Grandpa Joe for stealing Fizzie Lifting Drink.



In this scene, the most powerful and significant in the entire film, Mr. Wonka gives Charlie what he needs as opposed to what Charlie wants. 

Wonka, from what we gather, is not a parent. However, if he were, would be the kind of father that we would all benefit greatly from.

If we've done our jobs as parents, children understand that we only want what's best for them and only do things for them, including disciplining them, with that - and only that - in mind.

It's understandable why children would want to disconnect from their parents after being disciplined. After all, they're human beings; us parents don't like being disciplined any more than they do. If children understand that we only want what's best for them, the amount of time it takes for them to accept their discipline and eventually appreciate the lesson learned. The more they understand their parents role in their lives, the quicker said acceptance and appreciation.

It's at this crux that Mr. Wonka conveys what he wants Charlie to do. One could argue that his bed side manner rude and insensitive, but Wonka is clearly heartbroken at having to discipline Charlie. It's obvious he had Charlie in mind to be the winner all along. Wonka doesn't shirk his responisility as a parent and as harsh as it may seem, tests Charlie effectively.

Charlie gets the message and passes the test with flying colors. It's at this edge that many parents fail as parents and sadly, ultimately, fail their children.

Remember, we're their parents, not their friends. Give your children what they need.

1972 Plymouth Duster - Al Bundy's Dodge

Aside from watching "Married with Children" to ogle over Christina Applegate, when the show was first on Fox in the late 1980's I thought there was really nothing more to it than trashy, lowest common denominator guffaws; and I loved every minute of it. And while the show was seminal to the degree that it reset TV sitcom's boarders, the show was the antithesis of any other TV sitcom that had come before it, what I came to appreciate during the show's interminably long run was just how consistently strong the show's writing was.

That said, it is unreasonable to believe that all gags in any forum that's centered around humor could possibly work every time. "Married" was no exception. Particularly with regards to "Al Bundy's Dodge".

The casting of a brown 1972 Plymouth Duster as Al's car was curious since there's nothing that unusual about those cars. The Duster, introduced in 1970, was the coupe variant of the Plymouth Valiant sedan and was one of the few bright spots for Chrysler in the 1970's. Few would argue that the car wasn't an attractive design, a solid performer (relatively speaking) and was free from many of the pitfalls that cars of its era, like the Corvair, Vega, Pacer and countless others succumbed to. Also, there's nothing "funny" about these cars that would invoke ridicule. Unless you've driven one of these fairly large "compact' cars not equipped with power steering.

 

Wouldn't something whimsical like even a VW Beetle filled the bill better?  Many of the jokes surrounding "Al's car", though, were brilliant. For example,  when Al's car is stolen, Marcy sarcastically chastises Al for "leaving his car out on trash day". Funny line but the joke has really nothing to do with the car itself; it could have been any car for that matter. Also, with "Al Bundy's Dodge" being a Plymouth, was that miss identification of the car supposed to be a joke of some sort or was it an err in writing?

 



What's more, with Al, portrayed with exacting precision by the legendary Ed O'Neil, apparently having his Dodge when he graduated Polk High in 1966, the use of any car from 1972 makes no sense chronologically. Does that matter? Well, no not really but if the devil is in the details, it's disappointing this was overlooked.

While it's not out of the question that Al could love anything like his "Dodge", us "car guys" have  near inexplicable attachments to old cars, had the actual car itself been more memorable it would have made for a better joke and have made the car as memorable as the Ford Torino from "Starsky and Hutch". What's more, it would have made "timeline" sense. Of course, "Married With Children" was about a highly functioning dysfunctional family and not a car, but would, for example, "Starsky and Hutch" have been the same show if they used a plain, brown Torino sedan? Or even worse, a red Duster with white striping?

"Hello, Police? I'd like to describe a... Missing person. How tall? About four feet tall, five feet wide. Smoke belching out the rear, weighs two tons. No, it's not Oprah. No, it's not Delta Burke, who'd call to report her missing? No, it's my Dodge. Hello?"
	-- Al Bundy (Episode #7.24)

Leaking Shower P-Trap - Wow, You Got Off Easy

Recently my wife and I noticed that the same area in our kitchen ceiling where I had repaired a leak in our master bedroom shower several years ago was again showing signs that something was wrong. I pulled everything apart and much to my surprise I found the shower drain was leaking. Again. Well, what else could it have been? But still, damn.

I shouldn't have been surprised since I had tried to patch the leak last time as opposed to literally fixing it. Big difference. This time I decided not to take any chances and called a plumber to get an evaluation and most likely a professional repair of whatever needed to get fixed. How much could it run, right? After all, this is a drain and not a water line and I had already done all the hard stuff like cutting open the ceiling. The service charge for someone to walk through our front door was a more than reasonable $29. C'mon in, dear plumber pal of mine!  

Imagine my shock and dismay when he gave me this repair estimate of almost $700 to replace the "p-trap" that he said had a hairline crack in it. Love how he calls it, "an investment". Good thing he was such a nice guy otherwise I would have told him where he could put his "investment". 

That initial service fee of $29 was more like the initial service fee you pay when you first step inside a New York City taxi. Faster than the way a NYC cab fare escalates, he had his hands around my wallet for $81 since he had spent some time trying to fix the leak before giving my wife and I his grim diagnosis. Frankly, I thought the whole repair would have run me around $100, maybe $200 but $700? I paid the $81 fare to get him out of my house and while I still had a leaking shower drain, just like when my ancient cars start acting up, at least now I had a professional diagnosis and I knew what needed to be done.

Apparently, I'm naive when it comes to what tradesmen are allowed to charge when it comes to home repairs these days. He claimed the estimate was all by the book too. Yeah, but whose book? I get that they have over head and are entitled to make a profit but, c'mon. $700 to replace a couple of pieces of PVC pipe? I shudder to think what plumbing fees would run on a major renovation if just changing a shower drain could be so expensive.

A wonderful associate at Lowe's answered all of my questions and everything that I needed to do the job myself cost me, you sitting down?, a whopping $27. Yes. Twenty. Seven. Dollars. I've never done much plumbing but with the prospect of not so much saving but not spending so much money, what did I have to lose? The nice plumber even said that he would apply the $81 he charged us already and apply it towards the estimate if we decided to have him come back and do the work. I had literally nothing to lose and roughly $600 to gain. Or not spend.

Now, I have to wonder if he would do that if I brought him back in after I had screwed something but I'll never know since I was able to complete the job with little drama. It did take me most of a Sunday afternoon and some deep throated creative combinations of swear words but I can take, "replace shower drain p-trap" off my bucket list. By the way, talk to any plumber or electrician and they will tell you that a lot of their work involves picking up where a customer either got stuck or screwed something up.

Almost forgot to mention that when I was talking to the associate at Lowe's, when I told him that a plumber wanted $700 to replace my shower drain he said, "Only $700? Wow, you got off easy".

1990 Cadillac Eldorado - Time Marches On

Based on how the passage of time morphs our view of events and circumstances of the past, not just events of the recent past, mind you, but history in general, it's safe to say that the passage of time will change our perspective on "now" in ways we can't even imagine are possible. Whether we like it or not and regardless of which side of any line we currently have decided to stand on. Case in point, years ago, I found these "little" Cadillac Eldorados to be the embodiment of everything that was wrong with GM. And now, remarkably, I find them to have aged into pretty neat little cars.

The 1986 Cadillac Eldorado was a remarkably progressive design for GM; let's not for a second confuse "progressive" with necessarily "good".  It was even more of a break from tradition than their paradigm shifting 1979 Eldorado was. That's saying a lot seeing how different the '79 was from what came before it. GM had engorged the Cadillac Eldorado to unnavigable proportions by 1978 and the downsized 1979 Eldorado was lauded for it's engineering and packaging and for it's styling as well. The 1979 Eldorado had lost the better part of two feet of length and more than one thousand pounds and was remarkably still considered a prestige automobile. However, not willing to leave well enough alone and evolve the 1979 Eldorado further, GM rebooted the platform it was based on completely for 1986. This time, downsizing that resulted in a near watershed automobile for 1979 instead resulted in an ill conceived and poorly received one. Opinion? Somewhat. But Eldorado sales crashed some sixty percent from model years 1985 to 1986.

GM responded with impressive swiftness to cratering sales by making the Eldorado more "Cadillac-like" for 1988 by adding and inch and a half fore and aft while retaining the previous car's relatively diminutive 108 inch wheelbase. Doesn't sound like a lot and in photos it's difficult to notice the subtle improvement in appearance between a 1986 and 1988 Eldorado but the extra sheet metal worked wonders to mitigate the 1986 car's stubby appearance. What's more, Cadillac increased displacement of its transverse mounted, division exclusive V-8 engine for 1988 from 4.1 to 4.5 liters nudging horsepower to 155 from 135. More importantly, torque increased from 200 to 240 foot pounds. By today's standards these increases are minuscule but they were seismic back then.

Shame that Cadillac rolled out the painfully over-shrunk 1986 Eldorado and not at least this car. Our subject here is also an oh-so-rare "Touring Coupe" with a sports tuned suspension along with some hunky cladding. At first it seemed as out of place as sneakers. It was a harbinger of where Cadillac would attempt to go over the ensuing decades with mixed results.

In fairness to Cadillac we have to wonder if there was anything they could have done to usage the hemorrhaging of market share they experienced in the '80's and '90's. The answer is a blunt but qualified, "no". For the first thirty years after World War II Cadillac ruled the domestic luxury car market undaunted and unchallenged by competition. By the second half of the 1970's European luxury imports really began to gain significant traction and literally torpedoed Cadillac. Well heeled buyers passing on the deVille's for BMW's and Mercedes Benz'. Audi's too to some degree. A number of serious gaffes in product planning and execution certainly didn't help Cadillac either. In many ways Cadillac to this day is still digging out from under.

History always being revised, if Cadillac ever goes on a 1980's esque, product swoon again, today's lineup will be revered as the greatest line up of Cadillacs since the days of V-16 lore. Which we all know to be complete bunk. Today's Cadillacs are the greatest Cadillac's ever, V-16's and what not not withstanding; everything being relative. These "little" Eldorado's, though, never got their fair shake because they were (somewhat) unfairly compared to the wonton styling excesses of what came before them. Not to mention Cadillac the did terrible job they did with their first attempts at these things but such was GM years ago. They kept at it until they got it right no matter how much money and market share they lost. And then when they finally did get it right they deep sixed it. By the way, I'd be hard pressed to believe that driven back to back and based purely on driving dynamics that anyone would choose a 1979-85 Eldorado over even a stubby 1986-87 Eldorado. Styling wise there's no comparison but to the seat of your parents there's no question the little Eldo was the far superior automobile.

Our pretty red head here is for sale out in sun drenched Las Vegas for an eye watering $15,000. That's '76 Eldorado convertible money if you ask me. Sure, that big oaf might not be a fraction of the car this is but who would buy this for what it can do when any car today can run circles around it. Aging electronics scare me more than a blown head gasket too. Caveat emptor, y'all.

My sentiment towards these cars is nothing short of remarkable considering I wouldn't have been caught dead in one of these when new. Well, perhaps maybe these '90-'91 Touring Coupes. Then again, back then, this car was lambasted for what it wasn't and not for what it was. Just as, for instance, we'll never know how good a job Gerald Ford could have done since he was judged so harshly by association when he was in office. Time marches on and changes everything. 

2016 Mercedes Benz C300 - This Is What A Luxury Car Should Look Like

In this day and age where the most plebeian of basic transportation has the accoutrements of a Bentley, you have to hand it to Mercedes Benz for peddling their C class sedan at a  showroom cash register tilting, $60,000 per copy. Yes, the base price is thousands less, but what's the point of a stripper Benz? What's more, it's not only Mercedes Benz' best selling car, it's the best selling luxury car in America. Credit that with Mercedes Benz' 2014 update of the C class that was so fantastic that it helps the "C" transcend value. If you must know, the best selling luxury vehicle in this country is the Lexus RX.

Transcending value meaning that this car is so wonderful that people would buy it almost without looking at the sticker price. I love this "little Benz" and it's perhaps one of less than a handful of automobiles on the market today that seriously would like to have. And look, it has four doors and not two. I almost feel like a grown up.

Hasn't always been the case for the Mercedes Benz C class. For most of its tortured life on blacktop, a "C" on the trunk of a Benz denoted a vehicle that was for people who really couldn't afford a Benz. Save for a C class with the vaunted, "AMG" festooned to it's flanks. That dubious role now belongs to a car that's even homelier than 1993-2013 C class Benz', the A class. 

The C Class replaced the oh-so-'80's "190" series that debuted to much overrated fanfare in 1984. Mercedes has always had an "entry level" vehicle for sale in the United  States but never before had they offered a Benz for sale in the U.S. that looked so down market. Well, that was up until they started selling the "A-Class".

There's always been a familial resemblence to all Benz' and the original "C Class" cribbed many design cues from larger Benz' models. However, some designs work better on larger canvases. While an improvement over what came before it, the "C" was even more so a Benz that labeled it's owners as wannabees than the 190 was.

The larger canvas analogy can be applied inversely as well. Like this delicious 2014 "C Class". It too apes the lines of  the larger E and S class Benz' but its much better balanced. The current "E" and "S" Benz/ look like they're larger versions of the C Class versus what the previous C's always resembled - smaller versions of its bigger brothers. Semantics? No, not really.

Once the red headed, bastard step child of the fleet, the Mercedes Benz "C Class" is now the belle of the ball. This is what a luxury car, small or not, should look like.