I'm not a political animal, but I often equate getting politicians to "walk a mile" in a average citizen's shoes not unlike training a dog. You have to keep the commands, or in this case the re-educational information, simple and direct and have a reward ready for a correct response.

And I don't want anyone thinking that my comparison of politicians to dogs is a trite bit of parody on my part. I have way too much respect for dogs to do that.

What has my biscuits burning is a comment made recently by a politician concerning the elimination of testing vehicle emissions in certain states for pre-1996 cars and trucks. Due to these more than 10 year old cars and trucks not having a computer plug-in (I'm simplifying the procedure for brevity's sake) for ease and efficiency of testing their emissions level, and the costs associated with the more sophisticated and time-consuming testing procedure with these older vehicles, many states are considering doing away with monitoring these older vehicles to save lots of money and make testing more efficient.

I'll not go into the debate here on whether this elimination of testing older vehicles is good or bad. We are a society that relies on fossil-fueled vehicles for our daily commutes. A by-product of burning fossil fuels is air-corrupting tailpipe emissions. In larger cities where the concentration of vehicles plying the roadways is huge, the air quality suffers immensely. I'm all for clean air, but until our reliance on fossil fuels goes away, pollution is a fact of life.

One of the states considering ending the emissions monitoring of pre-1996 vehicles is Wisconsin, the home base for Old Cars Weekly. Wisconsin, I'm proud to add, is also a state that has an active old car hobby and dedicated hobbyists that work closely with our state government to ensure that old cars and their owners are given fair treatment in the rules and regulations that are passed concerning motoring. The majority of our governmental representives seem to be aware or have been educated by the aforementioned dedicated hobbyists of the importance of the old car hobby and all the great things collector vehicles represent. But, I guess one slipped through the cracks!

In a front page story in a recent issue of USA Today newspaper, Wisconsin State Senator Jeff Plale, commenting on the end of pre-1996 vehicle emission testing, said, "We need to get the old junkers off the road." Ouch!

Lumping all pre-1996 vehicles into the category of "old junkers" is, obviously, a slight against all the cars and trucks built before 1996 that are well-maintained, handed down in families from generation to generation and proudly displayed at car shows. It is also the kind of from-the-hip, unresearched statement that is occasionally muttered in our halls of government by so-called educated representatives who are supposed to be looking out for the welfare of our nation's citizens. These types of statements unfairly damage the reputation of the majority of older vehicles and, ultimately, the old car hobby. These knee-jerk statements also cost the people working hard to preserve the good-standing of the old car hobby lots of wasted time and money in the form of damage control to prevent the general public from thinking that just because a vehicle is old that it's a gross polluter and something that should be done away with.

As much as I'd like to sit Senator Plale in a chair and tell him over and over that "Old cars are not junkers" and reward him with a treat when he gets it right, I'd rather have concerned old car hobbyists contact him directly (414-744-1444 or email sen.plale@legis.wi.gov) and invite him to an old car show to re-educate him on what things of beauty old cars represent. I know I'm going to invite him to join us at the Iola Old Car Show coming up on July 12-15 and treat him to a day of the thrills of vintage motoring and fresh air.