DA, FINS, DA FINS, DA FINS

It wasn't the only 1959 model that boasted tail fins, but the Caddy was the Daddy of the fins. Even back then, they looks like a Martian car or at least some prototype of the future.

Ralph Nadar's book, Unsafe at Any Speed, complained of the dangers inherent in the design. He gives incidents of a motorcyclist, a bicyclist, a pedestrian injured or killed by the fins. He punctuates his research by telling a story about a 13-year old boy going after a fly ball who stabbed himself to death by meeting the fin head on.

It is amazing to look back now at some of the obvious, yet unintentional flaws in design that led to unfortunate injury and death. Yet we continue to do stupid things for the sake of style. One example is some of the high, high, awkward looking heels that stresses a woman's foot. Piercings, the bed head look, etc. may not be quite as dangerous, but for the sake of style we make sacrifices like the new age '59 Cadillac.

I remember the '59 Chevy better because one of my good friends, Steve drove one. We tooled around ( an expression from that era that I never understood. When we rode our bikes to girls' houses at an earlier age, we went bopping around. Also misunderstood or rather puzzled about the terminology) in that green car mostly during our juco days. Once we even took it to Joliet for Spring Break. Joliet is beautiful that time of year. But only if you have college age women with you. We did, mostly because Steve's fiancee was from there.

When we left for our return, we got about 30 miles out of the city when our alternator
went out. Sunday night. Well, what did you expect. We milked all we could from Spring Break. We had to spend a night in the car at a gas station until the mechanic came on duty the next morning.

We got back about dusk on Monday. With something like $1.74 in our collective pockets. But we looked cool in that '59 with da fins.