Well, it has finally happened.  I have about four pieces half-written and am at the end of one of those weeks that has announced to me in no uncertain terms that none of them is going to be finished in time for my regularly scheduled Friday morning entry.

In law school, it was the ultimate embarrassment to be called on by the professor and have to confess out loud “I’m sorry, but I am not prepared today.”  Oh well, at least my grade will not suffer from making that confession to you here today.

As it happens, I have a piece up this morning over at Curbside Classic.  For those of you who do not regularly read my stuff over there, it is about a vehicle that some of you who are over 60 may remember.  Did you know that the last American-built Studebakers may have delivered your mail in the 1960s?

Most of us do not pay attention to the anonymous trucks that make our economy work.  You probably don’t care who made the truck that brings your mail, your packages from Amazon or your newspaper (if you even still get one of those.)  Sometimes, there is a story to be found behind one of those trucks, and I believe that there is one about the Studebaker Zip Van.

For those of you who start over at CC and then come here to see what else is going on in the sometimes askew world of JPC, sorry – I got nuttin’.  But for those of you who start here, feel free to click on this link and take a brief look back at a little van that impacted almost everyone’s life, but which did so quite anonymously.

A parting thought – it is funny how times change.  In 1963, the Post Office was like a rock while 112-year-old Studebaker Corporation was about to go under.  Fifty-some years later, there are questions about the viability of the Postal Service itself, as it struggles to maintain the infrastructure built during an earlier time.  I wonder what kinds of retrospectives about now-common things people will be writing in another fifty years.