Friday, January 14, 2011

Thoughts About Those Little Round Things On Your Car Antenna



Obviously the car of a high
school or college graduate
December 1967

  They say that those little orange or yellow balls you see impaled on the antennas of cars are to make it easy for owners to find their cars in parking lots. It’s a new fad that making its way across the country.
  Obviously a problem eventually arises when one walks out, looks over the parking lot and discovers half of all the cars there having those orange balls waving away atop the antennas. It now looks like another super idea gone bad because of over-kill.
  One resident reported a reverse situation. The service station operator that gives them away had placed an orange ball on his antenna without his knowledge. He parked his car at North Hill Plaza and later returned to look for it. He began to panic, when after five minutes, he still couldn’t find the car. But there was one that looked like his except it had one of those dang little orange balls. He finally checked it closer and discovered… yes, indeed it was his.
  Then there was a car I saw the other day on Main Street. It was painted a bright blue with a wide red stripe running from hood to trunk. A sign was painted on both sides and the hood was rebuilt to a different shape. There was no other car like it in the world, as far as I was concerned. But there it was anyhow— an orange ball on the antenna.
  Another driver going down Main Street yesterday figured he really had achieved the ultimate status symbol. The antenna of his car was loaded from bottom to top with the Styrofoam balls.
  I serious doubt the practicability now of finding one’s car by following the little orange ball., but they may be put to an even better use. Why not use them to decorate Christmas trees?
Every year, my young helpers and I commit a fumble with at least a half dozen of the fragile glass ornaments and they crash to the floor, usually when we un-decorate the tree (or is it de-decorate?) Those little orange balls could last for generations! Well, I know that orange is not a Christmas color. How about investing in cans of red and green spray paint? Okay… just forget I mentioned it.
* * *
  A LITTLE NEIGHBOR girl rang our doorbell Thanksgiving morning. Beaming, she announced she had won a new puppy. And sure enough, tied to the end of a long rope was a cute little puppy, a combination of several unidentified breeds.
  “I won it at school,” she announced.
  “Gee YOU’RE really lucky!” my gang of three daughters replied as they crowded around the new arrival.
  “How did you win it?” I asked with some curiosity.
  “We had a drawing and I won,” she replied proudly.
  “Was the contest for the whole school?” I pressed on.
  “No, just for our class.” she answered.
  “Gee, you’re still lucky,” another of my girls reassured her.
  “We had to bring a note from our mothers to make sure we were allowed to have a puppy,” the little visitor added.
  “How many entered the contest?” I asked.
  “Well… I was the only one,” she replied as she fondled her new friend. “But I sure was lucky.”
  “Yeah. You sure were lucky,” we all agreed.