Automobiles! Aren’t they wonderful? Not to sound simplistic, but really, magic is everywhere if you just look around. We can get in these boxes and dash about much faster than we could on foot, for heaven’s sake – if that’s not magic, I don’t know what is!
I’m not saying motor vehicles are the perfect invention. I don’t think they are, by any means. They’re causing problems aplenty for the environment; I don’t deny that. All I’m saying is that people today don’t realise what it was like when they first appeared… it was like nothing we’d seen before. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure that they’d catch on. But catch on they have, well beyond what I imagined when I was a youngster.
You hear people complaining about their cars all the time. It could be anything from the air con being on the blink again to the difficulty of finding an honest diesel mechanic. Hobart area locals from back in the day, if there are any of you out there reading this – remember when this was all part of the fun?
I think people struggle to relate to this nowadays because their lives are so fast-paced, and equally reliant on their car being in perfect operating order at all times. Anything awry is cause for stress and bother. Seeing how my kids and grandkids rush around all day, I can understand why, too. The car is a necessity now. When I was young, it was more of a luxury – a magical object to be enjoyed at leisure, not something that your whole life hangs from.
Life should be about more than roadside assistance premiums and whether you can trust your local car service centre. Hobart is such a beautiful place to live; it’s the gateway to some of the world’s most beautiful forest. An automobile plus a drive in the country? Now that is next level magic, as my great grandson would say.