As they say, you can take the boy out of Detroit, but … Yes, a part of me still resents foreign cars. I realize, however, that the whole thing is a big jumble now — “domestic” cars built in Canada a Mexico; “foreign” cars built Tennessee, etc., etc.
Not to mention that this is America, a free country, where people can buy what they want.
And not to mention that the domestics cooked their own gooses by turning out some genuine crap for a number of decades.
So, even when my son — my own flesh and blood — bought a Honda CRV, I bit my tongue. But as I said, skirmishes still flare up here and there.
Check this e-mail from Douglas McCallum of Laingsburg:
“I used to have a Ford truck, and when it wore out, my friend, a Ford salesman, couldn’t find the basic truck I wanted, unless I wanted to order one made. (All available trucks had excess features like automatic transmissions, large engines, four-wheel drive). Toyota had three already on the lot — pick a color. I picked red.
“Recently I was at a 7-Eleven store in Haslett. An older man in a beat up GM car pulled in next to me, got out, and started yelling and hollering at me.
“It was mostly gibberish, and what I think was meant to sound like Japanese, interspersed with a suggestion I ‘get this imported junk out of here.’
“As I sat there, he went in the store, made a purchase, and came back out and proceeded to yell at me some more, bending over to look into my window. I suggested he go elsewhere — someplace very warm, in fact.
“Now, two things occur to me. First, if any UAW types out there feel that yelling and screaming loudly at someone will make them more likely to buy a GM product, they are very mistaken. I have little desire now to support whatever this man was pushing.
“And second — and more ironic — I wonder if this man is aware that the 7-Eleven company he patronized is a division of a Japanese corporation.”
