This piece of American History is a reminder of how far we have strayed from our roots. My 1957 Chevy pickup was built in St. Louis, Missouri at the big GM factory there. Every piece of it was m...
ade in some American manufacturing facility, all by American craftsmen or women, from materials created or taken from the earth of American soil, again by American workers and them formed in some American Steel factory or glass factory somewhere in America. Notice how often America or American was used in that last sentence. That is all part of history now. The GM plant in St Louis is a place of ghosts and haunts...empty many years and abandoned for some other ethnic worker in some other land. The steel plants in Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio....silent now so that we can import our steel from other countries, made by foreign workers....the glass plants are closed now, the workers all gone...even the rubber mats in the floor board, so proudly made in an American rubber factory, gone....all gone,
so we could bring the new ones in from another country and other foreign workers. And neighbors, if you think that the new car or truck that you are driving today is American because it has an American name on it....think again. 80% of the separate parts that make that car or truck were shipped in from some other country.
My uncle Leslie, the oldest of the four Hitchcock brothers in my dad's family, went to work for Fisher Body Plant in Kansas City in the 1930's. He became a master wood worker, building the wooden body frames for the 1930's GM cars that proudly carried the metal tag on the inside door frame "Body By Fisher" and stood for quality. My other uncle Cliff went to work for the factory making the seat upholstery. My dad went to work for the Bendix Westinghouse brake dealer in Kansas Cit,y, putting air brakes on the big trucks that had always been stopped by mechanical brakes, but now, with the big rigs that were on the two lane highways, needed to be stopped by greater power of air.
When my old truck rolled off the assembly line in St Louis I like to think it did so with a sense of pride on the part of the American workers that built it. It was all part of the American dream, self sufficient, independent, we can do it ourselves....what happened....it's gone....gone...all gone.
Today, when I put on my fresh laundered Wranglers, step into my old 57, turn on the key and step on the foot starter, and the six cylinder in line engine starts immediately with the sound of American engineering, the three on the tree shifter slips into low gear and the power train engages the American built transmission and eases the truck down the gravel driveway of the old farm house, I turn on the two lane country road and drive through some beautiful Tennessee farm land, the old truck operating as smoothly as it did the day it came off the assembly line, 55 years ago....that is what we have given up for so called progress. As Merle sings, "Wish a Ford and a Chevy, would still last 10 years like they should....Are The Good Times Really Over For Good?" -Stan
so we could bring the new ones in from another country and other foreign workers. And neighbors, if you think that the new car or truck that you are driving today is American because it has an American name on it....think again. 80% of the separate parts that make that car or truck were shipped in from some other country.
My uncle Leslie, the oldest of the four Hitchcock brothers in my dad's family, went to work for Fisher Body Plant in Kansas City in the 1930's. He became a master wood worker, building the wooden body frames for the 1930's GM cars that proudly carried the metal tag on the inside door frame "Body By Fisher" and stood for quality. My other uncle Cliff went to work for the factory making the seat upholstery. My dad went to work for the Bendix Westinghouse brake dealer in Kansas Cit,y, putting air brakes on the big trucks that had always been stopped by mechanical brakes, but now, with the big rigs that were on the two lane highways, needed to be stopped by greater power of air.
When my old truck rolled off the assembly line in St Louis I like to think it did so with a sense of pride on the part of the American workers that built it. It was all part of the American dream, self sufficient, independent, we can do it ourselves....what happened....it's gone....gone...all gone.
Today, when I put on my fresh laundered Wranglers, step into my old 57, turn on the key and step on the foot starter, and the six cylinder in line engine starts immediately with the sound of American engineering, the three on the tree shifter slips into low gear and the power train engages the American built transmission and eases the truck down the gravel driveway of the old farm house, I turn on the two lane country road and drive through some beautiful Tennessee farm land, the old truck operating as smoothly as it did the day it came off the assembly line, 55 years ago....that is what we have given up for so called progress. As Merle sings, "Wish a Ford and a Chevy, would still last 10 years like they should....Are The Good Times Really Over For Good?" -Stan
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