Column -- Ode to the Clunkers

My heart goes out to the clunkers.

Sure, the Cash for Clunkers program has been wildly popular.

Some 250,000 Americans traded in their aging, guzzling vehicles in exchange for a $3,500 or $4,500 federal rebate. Iowans, according to Automotive News, signed up for $9.7 million in rebates.

Congress is expected to pump another $2 billion into the program, tripling its original cost. Auto dealers are grumbling about red tape, but customers are buying new cars. That's good news.

Still, I can't help but have mixed feelings.

Maybe it's sour grapes. My 13-year-old Honda was an ineligible clunker. It was too fuel efficient.

Instead, I was directed toward the hundreds for Hondas program. At least my commuting wife now has a new car to drive.

I just have a soft spot for clunkers.

I grew up in used cars at discount prices. I learned to drive in a massive maroon Mercury Brougham that got 7 miles per gallon and steered like a transAtlantic steamer. My dad bought it from the high school librarian. Looked good with a coat of wax.

Now, seeing row upon row of doomed vehicles tugs at my heartstrings.

I think of those rows of grounded bombers in a poignant scene near the end of the 1946 film “The Best Years of Our Lives.” Dana Andrews, the dashing former bombardier, sits in the nose of a bomber as he comes to grips with the fact his war is over. Then, ironically, he gets a job dismantling the planes.

Perhaps all these ranks of clunkers also are tombstones marking the end of America's postwar, golden manufacturing era. A lot of clunkers are American. A lot of new cars being purchased are foreign brands. Maybe some laid-off autoworkers in Michigan will get jobs scrapping clunkers.

And like those bombers, a lot of clunkers have proud service records.

Just think of all the road trips and errands and runs to the drivethrough. They hauled home the stuff we needed and hauled away the stuff we no longer wanted. They brought new babies home, took kids to kindergarten and dropped off would-be scholars at college. They pulled tin cans after weddings and drove in funeral processions.

People fought in them and made up in them.

Just think if those back seats could talk.

But now it's the economy that needs stimulating. So we're saying goodbye.

Still, as long as there are teenagers in need of wheels, guys in need of an excuse to stay in the garage all afternoon and folks who still see beauty in old Detroit metal, clunkers, thankfully, will survive long after the cash runs out.