[By Merlin Lessler]<\/p>\n
I first aired this gripe, in print, 24 years ago. It\u2019s time to recycle it in a modified form. The car bumper is history. That shiny, chrome, steel bar that once graced the front and rear of our Detroit dinosaurs has disappeared; it has been replaced with a plastic, bumper-like object that shatters when it \u201cbumps\u201d into something.<\/p>\n
Some pickup trucks and a few SUVs still sport a metallic bumper, but not cars. It\u2019s another change I didn\u2019t notice taking place. Now it\u2019s too late. It\u2019s too bad. It\u2019s not just the shine that\u2019s gone; so is the pride that we took in slathering chrome polish on our bumpers to finish off a ritualistic Saturday afternoon car wash.<\/p>\n
We lost functionality too. Where are you going to tie the baby shoes and the tin cans when the bride and the groom drive away from the church? And, where are businesses going to wrap the thin pieces of wire that held their cardboard bumper ads saying, \u201cWe had a blast at Hershey Amusement Park,\u201d or \u201cI visited Howe Caverns?\u201d There\u2019s no place to wrap the wire.<\/p>\n
Where will you stand to pick apples from a farmer\u2019s tree when he isn\u2019t looking, and where can you attach a piece of rope to pull a friend out of a ditch? It\u2019s more than the shine that\u2019s gone. It\u2019s a way of life that slipped away. And nobody said a word.<\/p>\n
When I tell my grandchildren about my favorite childhood Halloween prank, tying a stuffed dummy to somebody\u2019s car bumper when they stopped for a red light in downtown Binghamton, they won\u2019t know what I\u2019m talking about. \u201cWhat\u2019s a bumper,\u201d they\u2019ll ask. They won\u2019t be able to understand how we got even with the \u201cmeanest\u201d woman on the south side of Binghamton on a blustery fall day in 1956. The stealth we employed to fasten a length of clothesline to her bumper while she was in her backyard, hanging out clothes to dry. The care we took to cover the rope with leaves so we could connect it to her garbage can without it being visible. The patience we exhibited as we waited for more than an hour in the shrubbery before she finally came out of her house and drove off.<\/p>\n
She turned left on Pennsylvania Avenue, hell-bent to get to a sale at Fowlers Department Store, oblivious to the racket she was making, oblivious to the now-empty garbage can, bouncing, rattling, and leaping in the air behind her.<\/p>\n
My side still hurts from that laughing fit so many years ago.<\/p>\n
The kid who also blew a gasket laughing while hiding in the shrubs with the rest of us, the kid who had tied the rope to his mother\u2019s bumper, turned to me and said, \u201cNow let\u2019s do it to your mother\u2019s car!\u201d<\/p>\n
It can\u2019t be done anymore. There is no bumper to attach to. We\u2019ve lost a lot more than a shiny piece of chrome. We\u2019ve lost a way of life. Let\u2019s take a moment of silence for another passing, \u201cThe car bumper is dead!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [By Merlin Lessler] I first aired this gripe, in print, 24 years ago. It\u2019s time to recycle it in a modified form. The car bumper…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":82349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\n