It Takes A Hummer Village
Hummer Village of Norwood is where you go if you want to buy a Hummer in Massachusetts. We sent Mike Underwood there for a story on gas prices and people who don’t give a damn. They offered him a Hummer for a day. No “hummer” jokes please. I already made them all, until Underwood begged me to stop.
Underwood is a Brit. Not the soccer hooligan variety. A very civil, thoughtful, well-meaning chap. I told him this would be an important part of his American experience, where he could learn what it was like to be an American. Big, gas-guzzling, obnoxious, all over the road, disliked … and loving it. I told him to surrender himself to the Hummer, open himself to his inner Hummer. I told him to take that dog for a walk. Here’s Underwood:
In my native England, where modest compact cars trundle inoffensively through the countryside, Hummers exist only in American movies.
So here in a land famous for its love affair with big automobiles, it was only a matter of time before I ditched my Ford Focus, loosened my stiff upper lip, cranked up the Springsteen and immersed myself in the majesty of this authentic king of the American road.
“You guys drive in the right lane, don’t you?” I joked to Al Piacitelli, a salesman at Hummer Village of Norwood, which kindly lent me a sleek, black 2008 Hummer H3 to test drive.
“In one of these, it doesn’t matter,” Piacitelli quickly replied - and I don’t think he was joking.
From my lofty perch in the driver’s seat, I felt like I was sitting in a plush throne, regally head and shoulders above my lowly highway subjects as I cruised back to Boston on the Expressway.
“Sitting in it, handling it - it’s exciting. You will love it,” Piacitelli had promised.
Still, I was keenly aware that Hummers stand accused of being ugly, gas-guzzling grandiloquent status symbols. Indeed, there’s even a Web site, www.fuh2.com, where Hummer haters submit photos of themselves flipping birds at parked Humvees.
So as I rolled into the Peoples Republic of Cambridge, I was fully prepared for a volley of one-fingered salutes and disapproving scowls.
Surprisingly, the bustling crowds barely raised an eyebrow - even when I wound down the window and cranked up the stereo as I rolled through Harvard and Inman squares.
But the habitues of Coolidge Corner in Brookline weren’t as forgiving: Elderly people furrowed their brows as I rumbled past. One woman on a cell phone looked up in disgust, and cyclists glowered as I caught them in my gale-force slipstream.
Despite the icy glares, driving this road beast, even for just a few hours, stirred a primeval instinct within me - the same genetic code that doubtless inspired man to discover fire and grill red meat for the first time.
And although my paycheck precludes me from rushing out to buy a Hummer tomorrow, my test drive certainly opened my eyes into the world of this much-maligned vehicle.
As the manufacturers say, the Hummer is Like Nothing Else.
Good lad. I’m pretty sure the wienies of Harvard Square was just intimidated by all the scowling testerone emanating from that rumbling pile of American steel and horsepower, and waited until he was safely past to think globally, flip off locally. The art posted at Fuck You and Your H2 at last check was shot from a safe distance, where the Hummer driver probably couldn’t even see the insult. Pretty low mileage.
We might have to make a series out of this. Maybe get Underwood a shotgun, a chainsaw and a bottle of Jack Daniels.
Meanwhile, who says Hummers can’t be sophisticated, sexy? via a Brit who’s already in touch with his inner Neanderthal, some Hummer art:
Here’s the Hummer owners on the gas crisis, by the way. Short answer: If you need to worry about gas prices, you don’t own one anyway.
Topics: America, Britain, Neanderthals, ancient mysteries, cars, hated Crusaders, oil
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:52 am on Thursday, May 22, 2008
4 Responses to “It Takes A Hummer Village”
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May 22nd, 2008 at 9:55 am
I’ll stick with my Ford F150. She ain’t a Hummer, but she can do a lot!!!!
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:01 pm
[...] Jules Crittenden on the town where every car is a Hummer. [...]
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:28 pm
What do you drive, Jules? For some reason, I’m picturing a Passat.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:17 am
[...] A Brit finally gets it: In my native England, where modest compact cars trundle inoffensively through the countryside, Hummers exist only in American movies. [...]