Days of chrome, dents and no cataracts

Does anybody else watch “Perry Mason” just to see the cars? Yeah, detective Paul Drake is kinda cute, but it’s the vehicles that catch my eye. So many land yachts.

How do Perry and Paul find time to buy new ones each week? Why so many convertibles?

Idle questions. But seeing those cars sharpens the picture of how things have changed.

        I still miss that chrome. It was the real deal. So shiny when you shined it.

        Is chrome an element? Wasn’t it on that big chart on the science classroom wall?

        SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH PAUSE.

The difference between chromium and chrome? (Skip this next part if you don’t care.) Google’s answer:

“Chrome and Chromium are built on the same framework. Chromium is open-source, while Google Chrome is a proprietary software.”

I might have known the Chrome operating system would complicate things. I’ve got Chrome. But Chromium surprised me. It’s like Googling “adobe,” meaning sun-dried mud. You get only software information, even when you stick to lower-case. Try it. But only if you’re bored.

        It took doggedness; here’s the chrome-chromium answer:

“Chromium is element number 24 on the periodic table. Chrome is the name given to chromium when it is electroplated over another metal.”

        Back to cars. 

Mid-century models weren’t flimsy. The word “ding” hadn’t been invented, except for cash registers. Cars didn’t get dings. They got dents. It took more than a slow-moving errant shopping cart.

Headlights gleamed. The glass didn’t crystallize and turn ugly and cloudy like today’s plastic lenses, which I hesitate to dignify with the term “lenses” inasmuch as “lens” by definition implies transparency.

Yes, a road rock could knock out one of those glass headlights. Then you simply bought a replacement – round or rectangular. Those were the choices. Simple, wonderful headlights. They didn’t even cost all that much.

If your lights grew dim, you blamed the battery or generator or alternator. Now it’s cloudy lenses. Would that the safety experts preoccupied with gas can spouts would shift their attention to headlights. That might at least spare us more spout “improvements.”      

Yes, I dearly miss those old beaming headlights. The Texas sun has a way of giving today’s cars the automotive version of cataracts. It’s easier to fix human eyes.

But surprise -- I just bought a ten-year-old car with pristine lenses. The previous owner had kept it in her garage. The lights cut through darkness! I’m in headlight heaven! Really.

Lacking garage space for the car, I’ve devised a way to maintain the lenses – quilted fabric headlight covers. Sewn-in concealed magnets and lead weights keep them in place.

Ragged bottom edges add ugliness – hopefully enough to discourage thieving nocturnal street-roamers. The covers are baby blue. I’m thinking miscreants like black.

If they get stolen, I’ll be flattered. I’ll make more. I’ll start a business. I’ll get a patent. I’ll get on morning TV.

        Meanwhile, a suggestion for carmakers:

Watch some “Perry Mason.” You might get some good ideas – like headlights that open and close like eyes. Seriously.

Hanaba Munn Welch, a correspondent for the Times Record News who divides her time between Abilene and a farm north of Vernon, appears on Mondays.  Her columns, as a tribute to the Childress Engine 501, always contain, amazingly, 501 words.