Gone with the..times
June 8, 2010 (Tuesday)
The announcement was made last week that the Mercury brand automobiles will no longer be made. I’ve written several times in this blog about my 1994 Mercury Grand Marquis, and what a wonderful car it is. The Mercury cars will soon be gone, joining the ranks of brands no longer manufactured. Mercury now takes its place with Saturn, DeSoto, Hudson, Nash, Studebaker, Packard, and many others, along with what must be a very lengthy list of models that bit the dust, even though their brand name is still alive. An example of that would be the Styleline Chevrolet; there are no more Stylelines being made, but there are still plenty of Chevrolets. How many brand names of cars no longer made can you name? How many models, like, for example, Voyager, Challenger, Valiant (or is that a brand name?), Corvair, etc.?
As far as vanished brands are concerned, how about naming some long-gone brands of other products? You probably remember Zenith, but do you remember Philco? How about Dentler Maid potato chips? (I went to high school with George Dentler). Did you ever buy “Carter’s Little Liver Pills?” Or “Hadacol?” Let your mind wander a little and see what it finds in the way of discontinued brands.
Life changes, doesn’t it? Nothing ever stays exactly the same. Not even us. Every time I look in the mirror, I’m reminded of that. Speaking of looking in the mirror, I read a day or two ago that advocates of self-esteem urge people to stop looking in the mirror if it diminishes their self-image. Did you ever notice that there’s a difference between seeing your image in the mirror and seeing a photograph of yourself? I suppose we subconsciously keep on seeing the image that used to be there when we look in the mirror, but a picture sometimes knocks us for a loop. Oh, well, perhaps a comforting thought is that everyone is aging—no exceptions.