Brand name loyalty
I have been reading up on the entertainers who will appearing this next week at the Madera District Fair.
Again this year our little hometown fair is bringing big name talent to town. Each of the artists has a brand that they work hard to maintain.
Madera Fair has a great history of staging concerts with famous musicians performing every night of its four-day run. This year it is 38 Special, Montgomery Gentry, Bret Michaels and Calibre 50.
Reserved seating is on sale at the fair office. Festival seating is free with fair admission. Bargain admission tickets and carnival wrist bands are on sale through Wednesday. Opening day, Thursday, seniors and kids 12 and younger get in free.
• • •
Brand loyalty isn’t what it used to be. I understand there was a time when many Americans bought the same make of car every few years. For example my husband has always been a Chrysler man.
When we met he drove a 1969 Dodge Charger. I shared my mother’s 10-year-old Ford Falcon station wagon.
On our first date I drove him to pick up a load of television antennas at a Radio Shack in Fresno. He owned the Madera franchise and had a market for the antennas. That night I learned a new acronym, SOWG. It stands for Sold Out When Gone. The antennas were SOWG but he knew he could sell them in Madera because cable television here was still a few years down the road.
He needed transportation to Fresno because he had ridden his Harley-Davidson to work that day. I told him I’d drive him to Fresno if he sprang for dinner. He mentioned a fast-food, dive-through. He called it “talking to the clown.” Remember when it was a clown’s head you spoke into at Jack-in-the Box? Clowns scare me, but that is another story.
I told Fred if I was going to waste my Friday night on his errands, the dinner had to be at a place with silverware and table clothes. I was 19 years old and Friday nights were a big part of my social life. I also made him put gas in my mom’s car. To this day he is a big fan of the 99 cent menu and I am not.
At that time there were two Chinese restaurants on Blackstone Avenue owned by the same family.
The buffet version was called the Luau; the fancier version was called the Leilani. I opted for the later. The food was good and the daiquiris came in a stem glass the size of a bucket. We decided we preferred the Village in Madera.
We have had a variety of Mopar products through the years. He still drives a Dodge pick-up. We wore out my PT Cruiser and traded it in for a Kia Soul. We liked the Hamsters in the company’s television commercials.
• • •
All these years later my motorcycle brand loyalty is still for Harley-Davidsons. There are many other makes of motorcycles on the market. The reasons for buying Japanese made bikes are valid. They typically cost less and are more reliable than the bikes made in the United Kingdom, Italy or the USA according to the GearPatrol.com.
In the 1970s and 1980s when I spent a great deal of time on the back of Fred’s Harley, the engine noise from the Asian made bikes in our crowd sounded like a swarm of bees or mosquitos coming up behind the Hogs.
Now that I am in my 60s I am really glad a tattoo parlor and an infusion of adult beverages were never properly aligned in my favor. Had the harmonic conversion of the two been right I am sure I would have a much wrinkled Harley insignia permanently inked to my body. The design would have been the HD shield between butterfly wings. And I doubt it would have been somewhere discreet. I would probably have wanted it where I could see it without a mirror.
Tattoos have become so commonplace they can be considered mainstream. I can’t help but wonder how many of these tattooed people will feel about their body art 10, 20 or 30 years from now. At 20, age 60 is all but impossible to imagine, at least it was for me.
• • •
The Labor Day weekend is upon us, the last holiday of summer. Don’t drink and drive, so when you return to work on Tuesday you don’t have the nightmare of a DWI case hanging over your head.
Have a great holiday!
• • •
Readers may contact Tami Jo Nix by emailing tamijonix@gmail.com or following @TamiJoNix on Twitter.
