Shades of Gray

I'm on the road, book-touring with my novel, The O'Briens. Last night I read the The Regulator Bookshop in Durham, NC; the night before it was Dogstar Books in Lancaster PA, and the night before that I was reading and talking at Highland Park (NJ) Public Library. Tonight is The Flyleaf in Chapel Hill NC and tomorrow I'm part of the Associated Artists gallery-hop night in Winston-Salem NC. Barnhill Books in Winston-Salem on Saturday afternoon.
     The photo below is from Princeton NJ, which seems about the most prosperous town in the world. It certainly is a handsome place. I had a great lunch at Teresa's in Palmer Square, recommended by the manager of Labyrinth, one of the great independent bookstores. In Princeton--as in all precincts of upper-middle class America, these days--most of the cars (let's say 90%) were in that very narrow color spectrum that runs all the way from silver, through gray, to black. What does this signify, do you think? What happened to American exuberance, not to mention big red Buicks? (Or Fords: see my previous blog, on Ford's Styling Brochure of 1956) 
       Go to, say, a golf club. Look at the cars in the parking lot. (But 70% won't be cars; they'll be SUVs). Report back, please, on the percentages of silver-to-black-to-gray. It's dispiriting.

                                                                          Palmer Square, Princeton NJ