“Young blood, you should get you a Old Skool. Now that’s a true investment that’ll always increase in value” this old Black man said to me as he tried to sell me his 1971 Cutlass Supreme he’d just dumped $18,000 worth of work into. I was on my way to firm up details for a DJ gig that required me to walk through the monthly fair weather gathering between 21st and West Grand once anchored by the Telegraph Giant Burger location and the dueling Gas Stations on either side of Telegraph Avenue.
When I returned to the East Bay in 2011, it was a haven of the Oakland that had been rather key in bringing my family in their journey to this pocket of the West Coast. In the early 20th Century, Oakland more or less was The Detroit of The West.
Once upon a time, in an America of a not too distant past, there was an interesting dynamic of who had access to necessities. In a country where we believe the myth of hard work and perseverance gets us far and wide, systematically bigotry kept and still keeps a number of people behind invisible yet visible lines of life.
It’s worth note of the potential freedoms that driving and motor vehicle ownership offer people. I’ve been thinking of the scales between the freedom and consequences of the motor vehicle quite often over the last year.
Dynamic Drive 