Auto Known Better humming right along

By Rim Vining

Evidently I hum... … not like a fluorescent light but I actually hum all the time. Songs, ditties, the Gettysburg Address… I never knew! My wife, my co-workers and if I think about it all my siblings say I always hummed. My earliest memories actually include humming. I would sit at the table on Saturday mornings as a kid reading the back of the cereal box and eating my shredded wheat while humming.

I'm thinking my automotive lifestyle over the past 60 years has only encouraged and promoted my humming addiction. I never had a stereo of my own until well into adulthood and never had a car stereo at all. Miles and miles of driving trying to reign in a weak signal on an AM radio in cars with so much wind noise it was a struggle to hear anything at all.

Then about 45 years ago I sealed my fate by making an MG my daily driver. The hum of a 4-cylinder tractor motor with a few clacking valves and a "sporty" exhaust note drowns out any thought of sound reinforcement. So you adapt. I did try a cassette deck for a while in my first GT but you only heard every fourth note. Pointless.

So in keeping with my innate ability to be a decade behind, I am fascinated by the evolution of automobile sound enhancement. The ability of Detroit and the Pacific basin to churn out new products while tugging on old strains of thought and childhood memories is truly dizzying.

I completely missed the debate over removing ashtrays and cigarette lighters and replacing them with power ports. I'm finishing up a 1964 Lincoln Continental four-ddoor convertible in the shop and it has an ashtray and lighter for every occupant… and wing vents… and a rear speaker which I'm sure worked well at 70 MPH with the top town. True hifidelity as they called it in the day.

Evidently I also skipped the sound evolution. If it weren't for the two years when we had a Mazda 3 with the Bose six-speaker system designed to hide the deafening road noise made by the sport tires I wouldn't have known CD players were passé. I look in my house and all my stereo "stuff" is obsolete outside of my own home. Thumb drives and Pandora have replaced the "Wolfman" and WBZ. Take a trip down memory lane and watch Vanishing Point again. Epic tale of DJ's controlling the airwaves and everyone's thoughts and actions. The power of Hertz and Marconi is greater than The Force!

I'm most impressed by the new Jeep Grand Wagoneer which features a McIntosh stereo with the power to take down the walls of Jericho. It has 23 speakers, a sub-woofer and a 1375 watt amplifier. That should stop the road noise. Truly a biblical feat. And for your $100-grand you get actual VU meters on the display just like the ones on the first Sony reel-to-reel you ever saw. Tugging those strings.

Now that I have been told that I hum constantly I have become somewhat self-aware that it is actually happening. I wake up with a tune in my head from nowhere. Who starts their day singing Blow the Man Down? Who strolls the fish aisle with a loop tape of the Kingston Trio? I am singing or humming or reciting drivel at all times.

All right, I admit it took me a while but I figured out what I am suffering from… Alls-hummers! What else could it be? Forty-five years in an MG will do that to you.

~autoknownbetter@gmail.com

Rim Vining, humorist, friend and a devoted community volunteer