CSotD: Culture Notes
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Notice to Political Cartoonists: A few of you have not yet posted your "Flint Michigan Jim Crow-era Dual Water Fountain" cartoons. Please draw them immediately. Thanks to all who cooperated and got their versions of the metaphor in on time.
The Quixote Syndrome reminds us that tonight is Robbie Burns Night which, if you are not familiar with the occasion, you can learn all about here.,
For a fellow who died before he was 40, Burns turned out a prodigious amount of good stuff, including "Auld Lang Syne" and "To a Louse" and "To a Mouse" and "Is There, For Honest Poverty" and other poems and songs not simply memorable but important.
There has been talk of lifting the US ban on importing haggis, though this company notes that they do make a semi-ersatz version in Maine that doesn't contain the forbidden (in America) sheeps' lungs.
I include that link not so much for information on importation as for how amused I am that they felt obliged to include on their FAQ an answer to the question "Do you make a vegetarian haggis or other puddings?"
I think the technical term for "vegetarian haggis" is "oatmeal," and I suspect Robbie would be as amused and appalled by the concept as I am.
I think you should serve it with a bottle of non-alcoholic Glenlivet.
Here's a cartoon-related introduction to the poet:
Speaking of cultural history
I prize accuracy and note that Dan Piraro got the tail lights on the van correct.
One of the first changes in the gradual mainstreaming of the VW van from an absolute classic to a who-cares vehicle was the enlargement of the tail lights, probably in line with some requirement or other. Hard to be the lead vehicle of a revolution with that sort of attitude.
Of course, it's hard to be the lead vehicle of anything at all when you have a top speed of 60 mph and then only if dropped from an airplane.
Or, perhaps, it's hard not to be, at least on two-lane, twisty, uphill roads.
As said before, my old camper is the only car I've ever owned that I genuinely miss. Still, the gag rings true, and particularly since I lived in Colorado at the time and, while the van was perfectly fine along the Front Range, when we headed into even the foothills – never mind the actual mountains – well, you had to have a laid back attitude towards time and a willingness to pull over once in awhile and let the ad hoc parade pass by.
In fact, I remember one trip up Vail Pass when we weren't sure we were going to make it at all, though that had more to do with a slipping clutch than horsepower.
However, he really should have added some black smudges around the engine compartment, since that was a frequent cosmetic feature of the thing.
An interesting quirk of the air-cooled engine was that, if the oil got low, the engine got hot and more than one van owner found the engine switching from internal to external combustion.
I never had that happen to my van, but, confession, while I rode in many VW vans back in the day, and shared a house and several road trips with the owner of the wonderfully named Bongo Dog Van, I was 30 and married and a dad and responsible by the time I actually had one of my own, so checking the oil and keeping it from bursting into flames was something I did.
It was a '71 and still had the little taillights and other classic features, plus one I added for, as Robbie Burns would say, auld lang syne.
However, by then I had friends who would ask why I had a string of camel bells strung across it, behind the front seats, a question that falls into that category of "if you have to ask …"
Well, we all get passed by in some fashion.
Still, come on: A VW van without camel bells would be like a vegetarian haggis.
Here you go — a Sixties double-header.
Now here's your moment of Scottish-bred nostalgic zen
Alexandra Elene MacLean Denny
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