“They don’t make cars like they used to.” And to that, let us all say “amen.”

     Coincidentally, a fire truck was racing west on Mills one day last week, passing several of us. Just over the hill, most of us heading the same direction noticed a huge cloud of smoke and reasoned that the fire was close by.
     Instead, the fire truck kept going, and the smoke came courtesy of a creep in a heap who put the pedal to the metal and who forgot to add oil to the engine 20 years ago.
     Our Mario Andretti of the Gallinas wasn’t just driving, he was gunning it in a way that allowed all around him to take in the salubrious effects of carbon monoxide.
     My passenger, grandson and namesake was upset over so many of us having to inhale the fumes of a polluting car, and he said something that really piqued my interest and recollection: “I’ll bet when you were younger, that was a common sight.”
     Well, Arthur Roland was right, it’s just that too many of us have forgotten. After all, when was the last time any of you readers followed a vehicle that belched acres of smoke, the driver probably oblivious to it all? After all, unless the driver of a polluter circles back to ingest his own pollution, it’s not his problem.
     Things certainly have changed, I told my grandson. If all of us could go back a few years, we’d discover how polluted our highways really were, with most cars burning leaded gasolines. Today, I emphasize, the one in a thousand whose car needs a ring job stands out. If a cop were to pursue the white-and-gray-smoke-emitting car he’d certainly be able to follow the trail. But then again, how would police be able to see through all the smoke once they cornered him?
     We had a discussion about what cars were like when I was a boy, and I told Arthur that 30,000 miles was about the life expectancy of the average car. After that, it usually needed an expensive ring job whose costs — a staggering $300 or more — may have equalled the value of the car. So people often traded them in instead, leaving the repairs to the next guy.
     I also told Arthur about improperly adjusted carburetors and leaded gasoline. Quite a topic for a 9-year-old.
     “What’s a carburetor, Pompah?” Arthur asked.
     “I don’t know.”
     “Then what’s a ring job?”
     “I’m really not sure.”
     “Well, how was leaded gas different from unleaded?”
     “I think your dad could give you a better answer.”
     Finally, he asked, “Do you mind my asking you all these questions?”
     I answered, “Of course not. How else are you going to learn?”
     Our family didn’t own a car until Dad turned 50. He’d bought a used Pontiac with all the latest bells and whistles, which in those days meant it had a heater and windshield wipers.
     One day I noticed he was adding a quart of very cheap oil to the crankcase (no, Arthur, I don’t know what a crankcase is either). That startled me, as it was entirely out of character for him. Like Sinclair Lewis’ “Babbitt,” Dad insisted on using only brand name stuff. So why was he adding cheap oil instead of Pennzoil or Quaker State?
     Dad explained that for about a month, our car, which he paid $200 for, used, had been going through a quart of oil a day. “I tried putting in Phillips 66 oil, but it goes through just as fast as this cheap stuff,” Dad said.
     The “cheap stuff” cost about 15 cents a quart, and that ran up to about $5 a month, even with the car parked. Dad said he was better off adding a quart a day than paying for a ring job.
     For a while during last week’s discussion, I wished it had been possible to borrow or rent a car of Å’40s vintage, in order to show my grandson how things have changed.
     To begin with, few cars had power steering, and navigating the “Queen Mary” was easier. Most car wipers operated on vacuum, meaning that when you accelerated, the engine took the air away from the wipers, slowing them down.
     Controls were identical. By accident, you might turn off your headlights when adjusting the heat, thus causing one.
     After-market air conditioners were more like Hoover canister vacuum cleaners, and they attached to a front window. (Just don’t lower the glass.) Controls often stuck out from the middle of the dashboard, making one wonder how many gouged out eyes and broken noses it took for designers to tuck away those pointy knobs.
     Most car hoods opened from the outside, which is why many batteries got transferred in the dark of night. Our car had the hood release inside, directly below the starter switch (in those days, the starter wasn’t attached to the ignition).
     Once, at a service station, Dad wanted to check the oil and he asked my sister Dolores to pull on the hood release inside. Nothing happened, so she wrapped the knuckles of both hands around the release and in so doing pushed the starter switch. The car, in gear, lunged forward, and Dad jumped out of the way.
     Had Dolores panicked, Dad might have been injured.
     So, last week, as I set the cruise control, adjusted the CD player, turned on the automatic temperature control, adjusted the pre-set power seat, clicked the seatbelts and checked the trip odometer, I continued to tell Arthur about the many features of yesterday’s cars, and especially about how in the Å’40s, cars trailed by billowing smoke were more the rule than the exception.
     Finally, I told my grandson, that for the past 20 years, I have never added a quart of oil to any of my cars. That was in the context of being conscientious about regular oil changes and other maintenance. We’ve changed the oil many times but never needed to add any.
     But Arthur was already locked on to the phrase “never added a quart,” when he replied, “Pretty soon your car’s gonna be just like that guy’s car (Å’that guy’ being the heap driver).”
     That’s not what I meant, Grandson.