Today I wrote about “Why The Hyundai Kona Turns On [A] Mystery Light Even When It’s Off.” It was a simple story inspired by my girlfriend spotting a parked Hyundai Kona with a green light on its nose. The replies to that story are fantastic.
First, this is one by Max Finkel is absolute gold:
I was reliably told in 11th grade that the green light represented Gatsby’s unending yearning for Daisy and his hope in the magic of the American Dream.
And then this dig on me from AlterId also deserves some praise:
I eventually came to my sense.
Don’t sell yourself short, David. I’m sure you have at least two. Maybe three. And it’s hard to be a romantic (about people or Jeeps or any other objets de désir upon which you many gaze) with more than that.
So there’s a hilarious literary reference, a short roast, and then there’s this from Collegiate Autodidact — a history lesson:
“LA’s Will Rogers state park, named so because the land once belonged to early-1900s actor/radio host/writer/social commentator Will Rogers”
Ah, yeah, not too many people today know a whole lot about Will Rogers; that description of him is a bit of an understatement about a pretty fascinating person. He was comparable in terms of his humor and commentary to Mark Twain even if his fame wasn’t quite as enduring as Twain’s. He was one of the most famous and most popular Americans back in the day; he was one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors at the time of his death in 1935. He died in a plane crash in Alaska along with his friend, Wiley Post, an aviation pioneer whose fame rivaled that of Charles Lindbergh (plus, Post was presumably less, uh, eugenicist than Lindbergh, especially since Post was part Cherokee, as was Will Rogers who was born as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation in the Indian Territory of what’s now Oklahoma.) Wiley Post was also pretty interesting himself; he broke the Graf Zeppelin’s circumnavigation record by flying a single-engined plane with a co-pilot around the world in a little under 9 days in 1931 and then broke it again in 1933 by flying solo (!!) around the world in just under 8 days. He also pioneered the use of pressure suits, as his plane was unpressurized, and in the course of reaching altitudes as high as 50,000 feet (15,000 m) he discovered the jet stream. https://www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/49049646957/in/photostream/
The significance of that one plane crash claiming two such enormously famous and accomplished people is not easy to convey today without bringing up more contemporary comparisons such as Princess Diana’s car crash in 1997. When Rogers and Post died in ’35 my parents were young children but they, along with peers, would still talk about that day more than 70 years later.
And all of that in the comments section of a post about a Hyundai LED on a fledgling car website. Amazing!
Ahh the “maintaining the 12V battery” LED.
The first time that light came on inside my EV6, I was confused an had to look it up. It’s a large, bright LED on the dashboard on the EV6.
Gosharoonies! Thank you, that’s made my day (more like my week!) And in the same company as those Great Gatsby comments, no less!
Yes, as already noted, those two people, Will Rogers and Wiley Post, deserve more recognition and appreciation today.
To add a little more about Wiley Post, an accident on an oil rig, where he was working right around the time he was embarking on his career as a pioneer aviator, resulted in the loss of an eye so for the rest of his life he would wear an eyepatch (sometimes for portraits he would have a glass eye.) The eyepatch can be seen through the faceplate of his pressure suit here:
https://flightbirds.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Wiley-post-Hero.webp
And here are Will Rogers and Wiley Post shortly before their fateful flight:
https://wileypostairport.com/sites/default/files/2020-08/block-bg-18.jpg
Well deserved.
And I love that people put that kind of stuff up here for us.
Thank you. Yeah, it’s always great when people do such stuff in the comments like with Toecutter and Rootwyrm, to name just two, that’s part of the charm of this website.
I congratulate the winning commenters. You wear your learning lightly.
That Rogers/Post comment is exactly what The Autopian community is about. Reminding us all of the facts we don’t know.
Also, makes me think of my time living in Mason City, IA and the constant reminder that “The day that music died.” happened there. The Surf Ballroom is a venue you should put on your radar if ever in North central Iowa. Also, near Winnebago HQ of RV fame.
Anytime artists or pioneers die together it hits the feels of what else are we missing from the creative geniuses taken from us too soon.
Yes, good way to put it; one untimely death is always hard but when it occurs in multiples, as with “The day the music died,” it’s all the much harder. And to think that tragic event, which happened February 3, 1959, is much closer to the day Will Rogers and Wiley Post died than today (24 years and 65 years, respectively.)
Indubitably so about what the Autopian community is all about, thank you for pointing that out.
It’s been over a year David. You’re not a fledgling website anymore. But I don’t know where the hell the analogy goes from there. Adolescent website? Toddler website doesn’t sound right.
Solidly into the Threenanger era by now. But I will say, it’s hard not to call your growing child ‘baby’ all the time.
Carpet crawler?
“We’ve got to get in to get out…”
Booster-seated website.
Excellent choices. Especially the Will Rodgers history lesson which I particularly enjoyed.