I CAN GIVE you two feet of reasons why I love my SUV, a shiny black Lincoln Navigator with a "Re-elect Reagan" bumper sticker (despite the fact that it's a 2000 model year). While the anti-SUV crowd has been shut in since Sunday - eating hoarded pumpkin seeds and granola, watching "The China Syndrome" and airing out the Birkenstocks - I've been fully mobile, able to go anywhere and do anything. I've shopped for groceries, tapped MAC and returned videos. I'd just love to see an electric car or something that runs on hash fumes - or whatever it is that they think I should drive - even try to make it out of my driveway in this weather. Don't get me wrong - I love my environment as much as the next guy. In fact, I've never understood why the Republicans have ceded the environmental torch to the Jerry Garcia crowd. But just because I drive an SUV shouldn't make me a logger in the rain forest. When environmentalists recently asked "what would Jesus drive?" as a means of discrediting the SUV crowd and laying a Christian guilt trip upon us, my wife coined the correct response: Every carpenter we know has either a Jeep or a cube truck, so now we feel like we're in divine company! There's more to the SUV issue than vanity and consumption. It's also a matter of practicality and convenience. Ours seats seven. We have four children and one of them always has somebody over. So we're often at capacity. Without the SUV, we'd probably be split into two or three different vehicles, each burning fuel and dumping something into the air. And there is the safety factor. SUV's are big and strong. And gone are the days when the kids lay down in the back of the station wagon playing car bingo while mom and dad play the radio up front. Times have changed. Our family has a quite a pedigree. See, we're third-generation SUV. We started with a Jeep. That got us through the Blizzard of '96. After that came a Suburban. And now we've downsized by a few inches to the Navigator. Much like the Internet or cell phone, it's hard to imagine life without it. I have much more to say on this subject, but unfortunately my time is short. The kids say that "Spy Kids II" just came out on DVD and they want to rent it, my wife is hungry for some Hope's Cookies, and I could go for a skim latte from Starbucks. I need some air. After all, I've been cooped up for the hour it took to share my thoughts. It's time to get out... again. Michael Smerconish's column appears Thursdays. He can be heard weekdays from 3-6 p.m. on the Big Talker 1210/AM. His e-mail address is mas@mastalk.com. |
