Before I get to the meat of this essay, I must introduce you to my sister Verna, who was the eldest person among the Carr siblings. Verna was proper in all respects. Perhaps she got this from her mother, who wore dresses that buttoned up to the neck. In any case, Verna, who was 15 years my elder, contended that she had assisted at my birth. I do not recall that incident but if Verna says so, you can take it to the bank.
Now, with respect to Verna, in the late 1920’s, she acquired a stenographer’s job with the Endicott Johnson shoe company in St. Louis. That was at the time when there was a slogan called “First in Booze, First in Shoes, and Last in the American League.” The reference of course was to the St. Louis Browns who were the paupers of the American Baseball League. There was no doubt that St. Louis, which had a plethora of breweries and shoe manufacturers, was first in shoes and booze.
In any event, Verna not only kept herself neat and proper, but insisted upon that conduct among her colleagues. For example, she would come home from work decrying that another stenographer who worked with Verna had her slip showing all day long. For Verna, this was a grave offence. A much graver offence had to do with the exposure of the bra straps. Somehow or other, every woman was expected to conceal the bra straps beneath her underclothing and never reveal them to the outside world. This was an anomaly of the first order in that Verna came from a rough and tumble family, but there was Verna, singing in the church choir without her bra straps or her slip showing, leading the righteous to their good deeds of the day.
Now let us turn to the main subject of this essay about hubcaps. I will try to marry Verna’s modesty somewhere along the line with hubcaps. The early model automobiles all had their wheels fastened to the brake drums of the car through the use of lug nuts. As I recall it – and I am an expert on the subject of changing tires – there were always five lug nuts that held the wheels in place. Sometime in the late 1930s but certainly in the post-war models of automobiles, it was considered a grave sin to have the lug nuts showing where the wheels were fastened to the brake drums. So the automobile manufacturers provided hubcaps to conceal where the lug nuts were attached to the wheels.
The hubcaps started out as small gadgets about ten inches in diameter but then proceeded quickly in the after-war years to great expanses of covering. They were held on, as I recall it, almost exclusively by tension between the hubcap and the wheel rim.
Let me point out that hubcaps were purely decorative devices. They served no other function except to conceal the lug nuts that held the wheels in place. Now if my elder sister Verna could have had a hand in this, she would have used hubcaps to cover the bra straps and/or the slips showing from under the dress.
As I dictate these lines, the image of Thelma DuPont comes to mind. Thelma is a long-time friend of mine who shares some of my views on the origin of the species. I suspect that Thelma and some of her compatriots such as Margaret Murphy would have welcomed a hubcap to cover up the exposure of bra straps and the under slip showing beneath the dress.
In former days, there was a large cottage industry, usually located on rough streets, that specialized in retrieving hubcaps that had been jarred loose by the ruts in the street. Remember the hubcaps were not held on by a nut but rather by the friction between the hubcap and the wheel rim. Sometimes the hubcaps would be collected by boys who took them to dealers. The boys could expect a return of four or five dollars for each hubcap. The hubcaps could be resold by the dealers who would expect perhaps as much as $20 for each errant hubcap.
But then in the 1980s a disaster struck hubcaps. From that time forward, hubcaps were deemed non-essential to the operation of the automobile and were disposed of. So it was that the cars that were purchased in the 1980s and subsequent models simply had the lug nuts attaching the wheels to the brake drums. The lug nuts were exposed for all the world to see. My sister and my mother would have been aghast at this development because everyone knows that under coverings should be concealed. But for the past 25 years, hubcaps have been a collector’s item. They were decorative devices that were deemed unessential to the operation of the automobile and which added to the cost.
During my long career as a filling station attendant, it was always my practice when changing a tire to put the lug nuts in the upturned hubcap. The new wheel was mounted upon the car brake drum. Five lug nuts would be retrieved and would be screwed on the lug. Then the hubcap would be replaced by putting it against the wheel cover and hitting it with the heel of the hand to force it into place. Hubcaps were not to be struck with rubber hammers because that might dent them. They were to be placed against the wheel cover and gently put in place by hitting them with the heel of the hand as the main enforcer.
Well, as you can see, hubcaps were simply decorative devices which toward the end of the game became quite elaborate. They served no useful purpose other than to conceal the lug nuts which held the wheels onto the brake drums. Now if Verna had found such a device to conceal bra straps and hanging slips, she would have whispered to her friends about the new concealment device. But hubcaps are one thing, and slips that show as well as bra straps are quite another. And if every woman concealed her bra straps and did not permit her slip to show beneath her dress, what would there be to gossip about?
Now let us turn to neckties, which are the other subject of this essay. In my retirement, I have been necktieless for several years. On ceremonial occasions day and night I submit to having my neck adorned by a colorful tie. On retirement, the necktie count on my dresser wardrobe door had at least 80 neckties. Time has gone on and I have given them away, assuming that anyone who took the ties would have some use for them. Like hubcaps, neckties are, in my estimation, merely decorative devices. They do no harm except when they get caught in a squeezing machine. For a good many years I avoided the four-in-hand neckties, favoring bowties. But the bowties were a thing of the past when the war ended in 1945.
So in substance, neckties and hubcaps are simply decorative devices. They do no great harm. They might bring pleasure to the owner of the hubcaps or neckties. And there are occasions which I suppose a male on the make may use neckties to entice a female into conversation. But all things considered, it was nice while we had hubcaps and I suppose neckties are still with us. They do no harm and so I am happy to have them. They give pleasure to those who wear them and to those who in the case of hubcaps still own them.
So this is my story about Verna, hubcaps, and neckties. Verna is gone now for many years but the same may be said about hubcaps. From what I hear, neckties are following the same path to oblivion but it will take longer. Hubcaps and neckties were harmless devices which would not violate the oath of Hippocrates who said to physicians, “Do no harm.” I enjoyed hubcaps and neckties and now that Verna is gone, I must say that I might have enjoyed her too.
E. E. CARR
April 4, 2011
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I just wish that Pop had encountered spinners when he still had sight. Hubcaps didn’t disappear, they just evolved into something even sillier.