Dick Winkles: A Twisted Tale of Heroism

 Dick Winkles isn't the hero Detroit deserves, but he's the one it gets right now

Dick winkles lives and dies with Chrysler. He lost his job when the company filed for bankruptcy in 2009. That's when Dick honed his craft as the best model airplane builder in the Greater Middle Michigan Sub-Metropolitan Area. Not the kind of air plane you out on a stick and then on your desk, the kind you put gas in and fly until some sniveling Boy Scout uses non sanctioned frequencies and crashes your prized  deHavilland biplane into a Wachovia building...

Like the Phoenix, Winkles rose from the ashes of miniature deHavilland--and Chrsyler LLC--to lend vision to the engineering of the new Viper's Powertrain.

Dick Winkles loves the Dodge Viper, almost to a fault.  "When [then Chrysler CEO] Bobby Lutz set out the viper mandate, he said he wanted to make Jose Canseco into a car. I didn't know who Mr. Canseco was, so I headed down to the library and fired up the Internet machine to see if I could look up the fella. I'd say, for a late 80's design team, they nailed their target. I have to stay true to that heritage," Winkles explained.  

Ralph Gilles, CEO of Chrysler's SRT branch, has his own thoughts on Mr. Winkles, "When I look at Dick I don't see where the vision comes from.  I mean, he's just not that impressive. But he made one helluva engine and that Viper will remake our brand...that way we can finally bring back the Stratus and no one will know...are you recording this?!"

Maybe Ralph is right. Maybe he isn't a hero. Maybe he's just a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A Dark Knight

A Dark Knight: The Dick Winkles Story

How to Know You're In Your Mid-Twenties

Today marks the pith of the author's Twenties.  It is the navel of the beer gut engorged by life's annuities of heart ache and alcohol; a singular point from which all of life's leadings and misleadings, trials, tribulations, triumphs, and happenstance can be viewed with the clairvoyant credentials of an individual having attained roughly 25 years of breathing and loving.  It is also where the author seems to collect most of his bodily lint. 

There are many things to be said about one's Twenties.  Most of those things really aren't worth saying or typing.  They are, however, evident all around us: in pop-culture, on the roadways, on this, our Internet.  Folks in their Twenties could rule the world.  Their spirit, not yet torn asunder by the rigors of age, is propelled into and onto the world by peaking hormones and enough education to make them lethal.  Having broken the bonds of youth's ignorance and naivete, they are poised to act on their hopes and dreams and force them on the rest of the Earth...Nay, the UNIVERSE.

The Tragedy of the Mid-Twenties™ is an egocentric crisis unlike any other.  Those caught in the middle are besieged on all sides by constant reminders of their idiotic past and pathetic future.

Your twenty-two year old friend who went drink to drink with you last night experience none of the ill-effects of the binge.  And boasts of their immunity to hangovers.  Ignoramus.  You know not of the wicked spells nature and time play on the body.  You will learn.

The work associate's 29th birthday, still three weeks away, that he's bemoaned since the 28th celebration of this miserable cretin's existence on our planet.  Twenty-nine, you know, is only a year away from thirty.  Life stops at thirty.  You get ugly and people will tell you.  Everyday.  "Thirty is the Eye of Sauron, looming over my impending doom," he seemed to say. 

Do not let the young or aged deter your absolute-mindedness.  Let not the existential matter filter into your consciousness and erode the solidarity therein.  Be bold.  Be yourself.  Enjoy the pinnacle of individuality.  It'll never be this good again.  And don't blog with your eyes dilated--sensory overload may affect the mind's ability to form rational thoughts.

A special thanks to Travis, my social media muse, for the topical inspiration.  You can find his collection of bloggy things here