Dano Says... X Files Time Today
Today I’m going to talk about a modern American fable. Together we’ll
determine if it’s myth or matter of fact. Perhaps it’s mostly tall tales with a
dash of truth, which is a recipe for tantalizing, suspicion, arousing gossip - in other
words good entertainment. However, a few paranoid individuals (my Uncle John) believe
people have been paid to keep silent or made to be silent by devious means!
What we are talking about is the great conspiracy between the American car makers and
the big oil companies. More accurately, I should say the alleged conspiracy. American auto
makers sell cars to many foreign countries who pay a lot more for gasoline than us
fortunate Americans. Cars sold overseas may get up to twice the miles per gallon as their
U.S. counterparts. Why do American buyers get the car with less mileage performance from
all big three car manufacturers? Because all three are being paid by the oil companies or
controlled by the oil companies. U.S. citizens pay less for gas and will accept less
mileage out of their vehicle. This pretty much wraps the theory up in a nutshell, or
should the nuts who concocted this conspiracy theory be wrapped up and sent away.
Dano remains skeptical, yet over the years I’ve heard things that make me wonder.
If it was true in the past, how could this secret go unrevealed in the year 2000. When we
all live in a global economy and information is exchanged planet wide, instantaneously,
and in mega amounts via the Internet.
My story concerning the past goes like this:
My father-in-law, Bruce, was a quiet introverted man who didn’t talk much. He
didn’t tell fish stories, spin yarns by the fire, or come up with "true
lies" to entertain company. In conversation with my father-in-law many years ago, he
told me of strange thing that happened to him in the late 1950's. Bruce bought a new Buick
from the dealer in the small Iowa farming town where he lived. He was shocked that the big
car that should be getting seventeen miles per gallon was actually getting about thirty
miles per gallon. Two weeks later the dealer informed Bruce that he was driving the wrong
car, one that had been sold to a buyer in France. The dealer said that he would exchange
it for another one and give Bruce $100 cash for his trouble. "No way," exclaimed
Bruce, "I’m keeping this one it gets thirty miles per gallon!"
Turns out Bruce had bought a lemon. In the next four weeks, half a dozen things went
wrong with the Buick. Bruce was a talented mechanic and excellent all around handyman. He
fixed much of it himself, but he was strapped for time and cash. The transmission had to
be replaced because of thousands of tiny metal fillings that didn’t even look like
they belonged there - very strange! Finally, the brakes gave out going down a steep hill
one dark rainy evening, as he returned from working late at the power plant. Bruce stopped
the car with minor damage by sliding against a big oak tree. If he missed the tree, he
would have gone off the curve to a hundred foot drop and certain death. The next morning
the dealer called him at work as he started his shift. Bruce agreed to trade the lemon for
another brand new Buick. He reimbursed my father-in-law for all expenses spent at the
dealership and still gave him the $100 for his trouble. The new car looked just like the
lemon and got nineteen miles per gallon. A far cry from thirty miles that the new owner in
France would get. Seven years later when Bruce traded his car in to the same dealer, he
suddenly wondered how the dealer knew so soon about his car wreck, because he had told no
one but his wife and two kids. Bruce didn’t say anything though. Like I said, he was
a quiet man.
My story concerning the near present goes like this:
In the early 1990's Dano worked for an aircraft manufacturer. Most of us in the defense
part of the company were waiting for our lay off. So one day I spent an idle afternoon
talking to one of the aeronautical engineers. He was a grizzled old veteran named Chuck
who was five foot five no matter which way you measured him. Chuck had done contract
engineering all over the world and he had many stories to tell. Pointing to a current news
article, Chuck growled , "This navy officer gets caught selling secrets to the
Ruskies and he gets off with ten years in a country club prison while my good buddy Jacob
was killed recently by the big oil companies because he wouldn’t keep his invention a
secret." At this point, I was intrigued. After promising the fat man all the beer he
could drink and all the cheeseburgers he could eat at the local bar and grill, he
proceeded to spill his guts. One of Chuck’s best friends from school was a brilliant,
but quirky engineer named Jacob. He worked many years for Ford Motor Company in Detroit
and then for many smaller enterprises. Jacob even started his own company twice and went
bankrupt twice. Two years ago Chuck bumped into Jacob at a professional seminar in Las
Vegas and the two both being divorced , lonely , old, fat, and ugly with nothing better to
do rekindled their friendship. Even though Chuck was in the mid-west and Jacob in
California the two talked to each other at least once a week. Less than a year ago, Jacob
was close to perfecting a device that would allow most American gas guzzling cars to
achieve a 30% to 40% increase in gas mileage. He contacted his old employer, Ford Motor
Company, with the idea but no one seemed interested. The peculiar thing was his contacts
at the company tried hard to avoid him. Jacob had worked with these people for years.
General Motors and Chrysler ignored him also. Jacob finally found a firm in Canada with
substantial financial resources that was very interested in his invention. Before he could
arrange a meeting Jacob became violently ill. His liver was failing. He went to the
hospital and died two days later. He had sent Chuck a key to a rented storage shed months
before. Chuck flew out to the funeral and checked out the storage shed. A few pieces of
old furniture and a couple of year books from their engineering college was all the shed
held.
Now Chuck was a bullshitter and a shameless story teller. The fat toad did love beer
and cheeseburgers. I got laid off four months later and Chuck took
early retirement and died of a heart attack within eighteen months, so I guess we’ll
never know.
What we do know is that Dano seems to attract these kind of things to him like manure
attracts flies. Dano is dumb as a post (and if you saw me) you’d know he’s also
twice as ugly. So I’m needing your help to solve this mystery. Has anyone else out
there heard these kinds of stories or even pieces of conversation that refer to the car or
big oil company conspiracy. If you have, do you believe the source, or did you ignore the
pieces of conversation as being trivial. Has anyone driven a Ford Taurus in Sweden that
got 50% better gas mileage than it should have? How about a Chevy Blazer in Germany that
gets almost twice the gas mileage as the one you owned in the United States?
If you wish, you can reply anonymously. I don’t want to be responsible for any of
you running off the road because your brakes gave out or becoming violently ill. If enough
of you respond with good stuff we’ll know the conspiracy theory probably was true in
the past and may even be true today. Then I don’t know what the heck to do next.
