Ayn Rand Fan Club podcast

[Ellen Stuttle]

6 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

In the early 1950s, Ayn and Frank were living on their ranch in California.  The area was still rural back then, and the road to the ranch was a dirt road.  This is mentioned somewhere in Nathaniel’s memoir and/or Barbara's biography.

From Judgment Day, pg. 41-42, hardcover:

— Start Quote

[Italics added]

On the evening of March 2, 1950, I drove my old La Salle down Mulholland Drive and into the San Fernando Valley, heading toward Chatsworth and an address that had been the target of my thoughts for a week: 10,000 Tampa Avenue.  There were no freeways or supermarkets in that area then, just a few scattered structures in a small sleepy California village.  I had the sense of being in a country environment far removed from the city of Los Angeles an hour's drive away.

For the past week I had shifted between two perspectives.  On the one hand, this meeting felt like the impossible, like a miracle, or a dream.  On the other, and this response was stronger, the meeting felt natural, normal, logical, as if life for once was as it ought to be, and the unreal had been almost everything else up to this day.

I found my way to a dirt road lined with trees, and stopped when I saw the modern glass and aluminum-covered steel house that looked incongruous in this rustic setting, yet absolutely appropriate for its owner; it was somehow an eloquent statement of self-assertion, so that at second glance it seemed to transform the setting into a perfect background.

The house was set back about two hundred feet from the road, and I followed the straight driveway down to the entrance.  I saw a small moat curving around the front of the house, with flowers floating in the water.  The property was actually a modest-sized ranch, but the land behind the house faded into the evening mist.  The beams of my headlights disappeared into shadows.

I felt as if ordinary reality had been left somewhere behind and I was entering the dimension of my most passionate longing, and I knew that the abnormal calm of my body meant an excitement so enormous that stillness was its only possible expression.  I got out of the car but did not immediately ring the doorbell, because I wanted to freeze this moment in my memory forever.

 

—-End Quote

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

If proximity to dirt roads is the standard, I guess Ayn Rand can be excused for being a grumpy-puss about the elimination of running boards (floorboards) in the automobile industry.

But if we are going to go to this extent of granularity, I have to contribute my own experience.

 

During several years in Brazil, I lived in a country house in a small mountain town right outside of São Paulo: Itapecerica da Serra. (I first lived on a rented 4 acre piece of land while my house was being built, then on my new house on a half-acre).

I had a 7 kilometer drive from the paved road to my house (both of them). I was working in the orchestra in São Paulo back then, so my daily drive was 35km one way. Than meant 70km each day, with 14km of those 70 being on a dirt road.

Guess how many times I stopped on that dirt road and got out of my car during all that time?

I don't remember any time except once.

On that occasion, it was in the middle of a nasty rainstorm. A small wooden bridge I had to cross looked like it had been washed out, so I got out of my car to see up close. I saw I could still use the bridge, so I did, but with big eyes as I was going across it.  

As an aside, before I got back in the car, I kept hearing eeeaah eeeaah eeeaah. I couldn't figure out what that was, so I followed the sound--even out there in the rain--and came across what looked like a little pink rat. I felt sorry for the creature because or the rain and loneliness, so I took it home.

The next day I took it to the vet and he said it was a male kitten. He turned out to be a snow-white after his hair grew back (meaning after we got rid of the mange and worms, etc.). I called him Snowball and he was a joy in my life for years. My vet was not pleased at first. He asked me why I kept bringing stray ratty-looking animals to him.  But he never minded taking my money.  

Back to point. After living in a place like that for several years, I know what going and coming home on a dirt road is like. So I seriously doubt Rand and her hubby would have had much business stopping on the dirt road to her California home, especially since she lived in a luxury home.

I can see Frank doing it due to his interest in getting his hands dirty with gardening, but not her (at least not in the way I see her in my mind). 

So I don't see what a running board would have done for her. 

At least I doubt her inconvenience about getting out of her car on that particular dirt road, which I imagine hardly ever happened, would be the reason for her grumpiness about the long-lost running boards on automobiles. 

 

(See, I can nitpick with the best of them.  )

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

3 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

At least I doubt her inconvenience about getting out of her car on that particular dirt road, which I imagine hardly ever happened, would be the reason for her grumpiness about the long-lost running boards on automobiles.

Michael,

Guess what.  Apparently you think you're arguing with me about something, but I have no idea about what.  Rand's "grumpiness" re lost running boards?

I haven’t seen the video.  There wasn’t a mention of "grumpiness" in the posts I read, just an issue of when running boards were discontinued on cars (I don’t know) and whether Frank and Ayn (who would have been in the car as passenger, since she didn’t drive) drove on dirt roads.  Answer to that, yes.

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

6 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Guess what.  Apparently you think you're arguing with me about something, but I have no idea about what.  Rand's "grumpiness" re lost running boards?

Ellen,

Not you. I have a feeling other people are not pleased about the running board story.

And your post was perfect for their ends.

Anyway, here is what it is all about. I told a story abut Barbara. When she saw the Chrysler Cruiser Kat and I rented (which I think she--like me--also saw as an ugly little thing  ), she said this car reminded her of the way Rand would complain about there being no floorboards (running boards) on cars anymore.

And in Randian fashion, Rand would go on to give all kinds of reasons and connect it to rationality and so on. As Barbara told the story, she started talking about a time they were all out for a drive, then suddenly, she stopped and said in an angry tone, "You know, Ayn could really spoil it when people are having a good time."  

So I said I felt there was something there and that I was not going to touch it with a ten foot pole.

 

It was just an anecdote I thought would be interesting and, of course, I paraphrase, so these are not the exact words.

During the interview, I couldn't get across what the old-fashioned looking car I was talking about looked like (and I couldn't remember the name Chrysler Cruiser), so I posted a comment to the YouTube video that anyone interested in seeing what it looked like could see the post I later made here on OL. (I also mentioned I normally don't promote the forum, but the interview was a very pleasant experience for me.) My intent was to show people what the car looked like since I did not describe it well.

Anywho, it looks like the comment got taken down.

I don't know the reason for that and I don't mind. But since William made a point of mentioning the running board stuff here after it was taken down, I can only imagine he's heard an earful from other people who did not like the story. 

 

After all, if Barbara said Rand was grumpy about no more running boards, that must mean Barbara was trying to bash Rand and it was probably all a lie anyway just so she could demean Rand. Will Barbara never stop stooping so low? Even using running boards to get at Rand, for God's sake. And here is little ole me being a puppet in this master plan...

All right, all right, maybe I'm going a little to far...

 

I'm just having fun with all this because it is so reminiscent of how weird the posts and arguments went during the PARC discussions way back when.

Remember that part of Frank collecting a whole lot of empty booze bottles, so they said, not because he drank the booze that came in them, but so he could mix paint in them?  There were a lot of things like that back then.

An evil running board story to lie about Rand and taint her reputation certainly fits that context...

 

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

4 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

An evil running board story

I see.  Oh, my.

Meanwhile, I recommend that people read the whole excerpt I posted from Judgment Day.  I looked that up just because I thought it included mention of the dirt road - as indeed it does.  However, I copied the whole passage because…talk about the art of storytelling.  It's really well told.

Ellen

[ThatGuy]

This conversation about cars has me remembering a line in passing that Rand made about cars being wider and lower to the ground, but I can't for the life of me remember where I read it. Does anyone else remember this? It was such a random line, but it stuck with me because I was never sure if she considered it a good or bad thing, so I'm kinda chuckling to see this thread...

[algernonsidney]

On 8/25/2022 at 9:39 AM, Ellen Stuttle said:

On the evening of March 2, 1950, I drove my old La Salle down Mulholland Drive and into the San Fernando Valley, heading toward Chatsworth and an address that had been the target of my thoughts for a week: 10,000 Tampa Avenue.

This reminds me of Archie and Edith Bunker singing: "Gee, our old LaSalle ran great...."

[algernonsidney]

Perhaps, the worst road I've ever traveled was outside of Iquitos, Peru. It was just a bumpy, uneven dirt road.

In many poorer countries, roads are not built well or maintained well. Even paved roads aren't paved as much.