MISCELLANY

Grilling the Old Car Buffs. Members of the East Alabama Old Car Club, like all old-car enthusiasts, pride themselves on their ability to identify an old car on the basis of a hood ornament, a trunk handle, or most any other piece of chrome. Borrowing a few of the great photographs from MotionalMemories, I've engineered a PowerPoint Show that can put the the old car buffs to the test on the basis of grilles. There are ten automobiles in this show, with the earliest a 1937 model and the latest a 1961 model. Just click through the show and identify the cars by make and year model. A GRILLESHEET is provided for use at gatherings of old-car enthusiasts. The slides revealing the make and year model can be hidden for the first showing or moved to the end of the PowerPoint show. Comments and suggestions: garriro@auburn.edu (Also available is a second PowerPoint show and quiz, titled Cars and Parts, which was presented at the EAOCC's Valentine's Day dinner in February of 2003.)

Valentine's Dinner Show and Quiz for 2003. Old-car PowerPoint shows have turned into an annual event of the East Alabama Old Car Club. There are two PowerPoint shows here. The first one reviews the EAOCC's 2002 Car Show, which was held on June 15 and was hosted by the USA Factory Outlet Stores in Opelika, Alabama. The second show is a 70-point quiz that features more than thirty cars from 1939 through 1961. An answer sheet is provided in .pdf format. The quiz is set up to be run on your monitor or to be projected on a screen at a gatherings of old-car buffs. (Note to the quiz proctor: Slides with quiz cars are marked with the initials EAOCC. Click on these initials to move to the next slide without revealing the make and model of quiz car. The EAOCC on the last slide--Bonus #3--will take you back to the first quiz car, at which point you can click through the show a second time revealing the makes and models.)

Valentine's Dinner Show and Quiz for 2004. After dining at Provino's restaurant in Auburn, Alabama, the membership of the EAOCC was subjected to this mutliple-choice quiz, which includes both collectables and restorables.  

Automosaics. These six 24-tile mosaics present a special challenge to the old car buffs. 

Act No. 96-818. Re: Vintage Vehicle License Tags. A couple of years ago, the state of Alabama amended the legislation governing the licensing of antique cars. Before the new law went into effect, the East Alabama Old Car Club invited Auburn's Chief of Police to address the club on the issue of enforcement. The truth of the story told here is an ethereal truth--as will be recognized by all antique-car enthusiasts. It was written to provide a basis for discussion when a representative of Auburn's police department met with the membership of the EAOCC. 

Eagle Picher in the Summer of 1965. This is a true story--though the truth has fermented for more than three decades. It was written in recent months at the urging of Tony Dousette (1944-2003), an old friend and classmate at Joplin Junior College (Class of '64). He remembered hearing the story in 1965 from his father Ralph Dousette, who was a full-time employee at Eagle Picher, and from me, a summer recruit. 

"An Armchair View of Escalators." ABSTRACT: There is much pedagogical value in applying the economist’s standard analytical tools to issues about which students have a common-sense understanding. Using indifference curve analysis to show why people stand still on escalators but walk on moving walkways helps establish the near-universal applicability of economic theory. A critical comparison of escalators and moving walkways breathes life into the difference between corner solutions and tangency solutions. And working with contrasting preference maps to deal with an issue where the student’s own intuition is fully in play may help the student to read indifference curves in less intuitive cases.