Red automobiles dominate the nation’s highway these days. They started being everywhere two weeks ago.

Brown ones held top spot for five years, and before the brown ones, white was the favorite color.

Don’t ask me to statistically support my statements. Observation should satisfy the curious.

When Regina and I were going to have our first baby, in 1968, half the women were pregnant. (Only women and not their husbands, too, got pregnant back in the good old days.)

Public service announcements warning against birth defects filled newspapers, billboards, television, magazines and radio. They haunted us.

Defects were epidemic until Lynn was born in June and they miraculously disappeared. Women were no longer pregnant.

Dormancy wasn’t for long. Within less than three years, pregnancy was on the rise and birth defect warnings popped up again.

So, the reason there are so many red automobiles must be that we now have a red one. Regina says her Ford Escape is Roll Tide red.

We were returning from the farm the other day when we discovered the red-car epidemic. Three red vehicles were in line behind us on Alabama 67 at the time we were approaching two going south.

“What happened to all of the brown ones, like our old LeSabre?’ Regina asked.

“Gone,” I said, “Just like the white ones.”

The LeSabre before the brown one was white. In fact, we had two white ones, just like we had a brown one and a brown truck until two weeks ago.

So I began counting brown vehicles and she counted white ones. They outnumbered the red ones.

Now I’m wondering if the entire world was really pregnant in 1968 and 1971 and if our acute sense of awareness hadn’t gone the way of hormones. Tom Wright is executive editor.

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