Month: May 2017

The Packard Adventures of Howard A. “Dutch” Darrin, Part 2

The Packard Adventures of Howard A. “Dutch” Darrin, Part 2

A chance met­ing with Dar­ryl Zanuck brought Dar­rin back to America—at exact­ly the right time. The cus­tom coach­build­ing busi­ness was wan­ing, semi-cus­toms were in, and Packard need­ed a new body style. Con­tin­ued from Part 1…

Part 2

Excerpt: For full text and illus­tra­tions and a ros­ter of Packard Dar­rins, see The Auto­mo­bile, May 2017. 

Dar­rin fre­quent­ly hob­nobbed with the Good and the Great. One day in 1934, at the Paris Polo Club, a club direc­tor approached: “There’s an Amer­i­can out on the play­ground with a horse and polo mal­let; please see if you can help him.” Dutch went out and met film pro­duc­er Dar­ryl Zanuck—who invit­ed him to Hol­ly­wood.…

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Would Winston Churchill Legalize Smoking Pot?

Would Winston Churchill Legalize Smoking Pot?

The first com­mand­ment of Lady Soames, Win­ston Churchill’s renowned daugh­ter (1922-2014), was: “Thou shalt not pro­claim what my father would do in mod­ern sit­u­a­tions.” How­ev­er, since she enjoyed smok­ing a good cig­ar on occa­sion, she might excuse the sug­ges­tion that if he were around, he would prob­a­bly not object to legal­iz­ing marijuana.

Churchill on Smoking

The jour­nal­ist and broad­cast­er Collin Brooks wrote a spright­ly essay, “Churchill the Con­ver­sa­tion­al­ist,” in Charles Eade‘s col­lec­tion of arti­cles, Churchill by His Con­tem­po­raries. (This 1953 book is inex­pen­sive and well worth own­ing. It’s an ever­green col­lec­tion of per­cep­tive pieces on aspects of Churchill’s life and character.)…

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All the Luck: Howard A. “Dutch” Darrin, Part 1

All the Luck: Howard A. “Dutch” Darrin, Part 1

Dutch Dar­rin was supreme­ly lucky—and one of the most charm­ing things about him was that he nev­er ceased say­ing so.

Part 1

Excerpt only. For full text and illus­tra­tions and a ros­ter of Packard Dar­rins, see The Auto­mo­bile, May 2017. 

Look­ing back on the pre­vi­ous cen­tu­ry, the his­to­ri­an Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. reflect­ed that indi­vid­u­als do make a dif­fer­ence: “In Decem­ber 1931 Churchill, cross­ing Fifth Avenue in New York City, looked in the wrong direc­tion and was knocked down by an auto­mo­bile. Four­teen months lat­er Franklin Roo­sevelt was fired on by an assassin….Would the next two decades have been the same had the car killed Churchill in 1931 and the bul­let killed Roo­sevelt in 1933?”…

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