It's not a criticism, it's an observation.
The morality of old cars

Mike Cox

You could drive two hundred miles on a dollar's worth of gas and travel unworried for months without opening the hood. The car was a Datsun B110 sedan. The interior was cheap, stained, and torn. Army green exterior faded by sunlight, neglect, and a cheap paint job completed the package.

I bought the car from a friend who got tired of it sitting in his yard. The left front fender was crushed from a lost altercation with an oak tree by his inebriated brother.

It costs about half of what a fantasy escort goes for today in Washington, D.C. The little creampuff became the ultimate work vehicle after I duct taped a headlight over the mangled fender so I could drive it after dark.

My late friend Tommy carpooled with me. He insisted we stop for a six pack of Busch each afternoon. Empties were dropped into the back seat, which no one ever used. Someone nicknamed the car The Happy before I bought it. The name stuck.

When the back overflowed with beer cans, I would stop someone scavenging in the neighborhood dumpster or on the side of the road and offer him all the cans and anything else he or she found. It was a win- win situation.

A guy I worked with was raising money for his church one September and was collecting all the soft drink cans at the work center. We offered him the entire bounty of The Happy's back seat. Not only did he refuse, he was offended.

His reaction reminded me of something that happened in Pensacola when my son lived there. During a fundraiser for breast cancer, a local gentleman's club had a car wash one Saturday morning.

As you might expect with well endowed young ladies in bikinis in close proximity to water, the response was gigantic. The group raised a large amount of money, and the ladies involved were ecstatic.

When they tried to present the money to the local breast cancer chapter, their donation was turned down. Again, the proposed recipient not only refused but was indignant about the very idea of accepting tainted money. A Pensacola shelter for battered women ended up with an appreciated windfall.

A couple of years ago, Richard Scrushy was indicted in Alabama for all sorts of wrongdoing involving his health insurance monolith, Healthsouth. Before having to learn the perp walk, Scrushy was one of the state's leading philanthropists. Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember anyone trying to return any donations after the insurance honcho was arrested.

Things get confusing when people become morally outraged. The difference between legally and morally right can bounce around. Justification allows us to live with suspect decisions and sleep better. Stealing money from sick people is illegal. Drinking alcohol and flaunting nature's abundance, questionable but within the law.

Yet there are many who will cut off their sanctimonious nose and spite their hypocritical face to appear morally superior. Right and wrong should be as simple as an old Datsun. The engine will run as long as there is gas; no matter how many beer cans are in the back seat.