My parents never owned a Pontiac, but I was sorry to read a newspaper story saying that General Motors will stop making them next year. They've already stopped making Oldsmobiles.

During the years I was in school, we owned an Oldsmobile, a Ford, a Dodge and a Packard.

I liked the Olds, but our Packard was by far the best car we ever had. We weren't rich, but my father made good money during the Depression. My mother controlled the bank account and did most of the driving, so we owned a Packard. It was the best car I ever knew until I got my jeep in the Army.

We had a good house with five bedrooms in town, a summer place on a lake 70 miles away, and my sister and I both went to private schools that cost money. My parents could afford to own that Packard. That was as close as we came to being really rich.

The Packard was a great car then and my memory of it is that it was better than the car we own today, 70 years later. You had to shift the gears manually. The car easily went faster than it was legal to drive and was all around classier than either of the two cars I have now.

Our cottage on the lake was three hours from home, and week after week my mother drove the car 70 mph for three hours getting to our cottage. I don't remember any time the car didn't perform well and didn't take us where we wanted to go...quickly. Our Packard always felt good, too. I wish I could own one now and I still have a soft spot in my heart for Packards.

Beginning with the cars I drove that my mother and father owned and including all the cars and trucks I drove in the Army, I suppose I've driven more than 20 cars for more than 10,000 miles, and a few of them a lot farther than that. I'm not counting hundreds of cars I've rented and driven.

In London, I had my own jeep during World War II because I drove out to one of the airfields to report on the frequent occasions when there were air raids emanating from there. After the Invasion, June 6, 1944 (we always capitalized it because to us there was only one), I took my Jeep to France and Germany, following the infantry troops everywhere they went.

It seems wrong, but I cannot recall now whether "jeep" was capitalized or not when I had mine. I never mentioned it in my stories then, so it didn't matter. I'm uncertain, but as I recall, "jeep" didn't become an uppercase, proper name until after the war, when the makers wanted it known that they produced it. The jeep was made originally by the American Bantam Car Company in Pennsylvania, and both Ford and Willys shortly after got into making them. (I don't know what happened to the Bantam Car Company.)

I loved my jeep during the war and took it everywhere I went. I drove it dangerously close to the front, ate in it, slept in it and did interviews in it. The jeep was my home away from home. It never let me down, and I remember to this day when I gave it up to come back to the United States. I wouldn't have abandoned it for anything less.

During World War II, I traveled mostly with a press camp comprising 18 or 20 newsmen and one woman.

There were seven jeeps for the reporters. Every day, I went to a different unit near the front, looking for a good story and other reporters always wanted to go with me.

It wasn't only that I had my own jeep, but as a reporter for the Army newspaper, The Stars and Stripes, which was circulated only among our servicemen, I was no competition for the American reporters sending stories back to the U.S.

I hope they don't discontinue the Jeep.

ALSO from andy rooney:

(Write to Andy Rooney at Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207, or via email at aarooney5@yahoo.com)

(c) 2009 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

About Andy Rooney

Andy Rooney born January 14th, 1919 is a writer, humorist, radio and television personality.

Rooney became most famous as a humorist and political commentator with his weekly broadcast on the CBS News Program "60 Minutes" since 1978.

Recent Political Commentary

The Complex Case of Complexity
by Alvin and Heidi Toffler

In an important recent speech, months after the current financial crisis began, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, Ben Bernanke, placed partial blame for the catastrophe on "the sharp increase in the complexity of the financial products offered to consumers." Unfortunately, his description of the problem comes late and underestimates its importance. ...

Why are Bankers Still Being Treated as Beltway Royalty
by Arianna Huffington

President Obama said that he's been "sobered by the fact that change in Washington comes slow" and "humbled by the fact that the presidency is extraordinarily powerful, but we are just part of a much broader tapestry of American life and there are a lot of different power centers." Well, one of those different power centers -- the entrenched special interests that continue to call so many shots on Capitol Hill -- is the main reason change in D.C. comes so slow. But despite all that I know about the reform-killing power unleashed by the nexus of lobbying, campaign cash and legislation, I have been flabbergasted by the amount of behind-the-scenes influence recently being wielded by the banking lobby.

President Obama's First 100 Days

The Good, The Bad & The Geithner
Arianna Huffington

It's hard to believe that President Obama has only been in office for such a short time, but sometimes 100 days feels like more than 100 days. So how's it going? According to the American people, pretty darn good.

Our Jekyll & Hyde President
Victor Davis Hanson

In matters of foreign policy during the president's first 100 days, we have seen two Barack Obamas. So which Obama persona is the real president -- Obama I, more radical than Jimmy Carter, or Obama II, a smoother centrist than Bill Clinton?

Obama's Liberal Arrogance Will Be His Undoing
Jonah Goldberg

The most remarkable, or certainly the least remarked on, aspect of Barack Obama's first 100 days has been the infectious arrogance of his presidency. There's no denying that this is liberalism's greatest opportunity for wish fulfillment since at least 1964. But to listen to Democrats, the only check on their ambition is the limit of their imaginations.

Obama's Foreign Policy Challenge
by Henry Kissinger

The first overseas trip of a new president always has a significance beyond its itinerary.

The president has an opportunity to test the impact of his policies; his interlocutors begin to assess the leader with whom they will have to deal over at least four years.