The above is the real deal:1950 or so Mercury. The name is not really important. The machine needs no name. Seeing this car, in this century, still cruising, is just a wonderfully authentic thing. They don't make em like this no more. It transcends the evolution of automobile design and still stuns. Like the great shark that she be.
Authentic is what we all try to be, right? Nobody wants to be a poser. I love the look of the car, but if I drove this around town, I would certainly feel like a phony, as I know nothing about cars or how much work it must have taken to keep this one alive. I am not worthy of the title of ownership. Apart from that, it is just not my look. I love and respect the design of this beast, but it would certainly not fit my somewhat preppy upper-main-line Philadelphia aesthetic sense.
So, on the subject of worthiness, I have been wondering about my own. As the blog's subtitle says, this space is about the beginning of the the end of the middle of life, or in other words, I will soon no longer to be able to claim rights to a mid-life crisis. As I get old and crusty, there are times when I wonder if I was sold a bill of goods in junior high English when presented with Frost's The Road Not Taken. Now that I am somewhere ages and ages hence, has my journey made all the difference? And...do I really care?