Date:         Sat, 28 Oct 2000 23:12:56 -0400
Reply-To:     Stephen Steele <steeles@HORIZONVIEW.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Stephen Steele <steeles@HORIZONVIEW.NET>
Subject:      Re: vanagon thread ongoing on the quattro list.....
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

The myth perpetuated:
>>  Many Vanagon owners are hippies, many aren't, but probably more
>> are than most car owners.  Thus, more listers probably are as
>> well.

Generalizations sometimes apply.
Sometimes they don't.
Some of us used to be what my kids think of as hippies...but times change
and people with them. Most of my hippy friends are now mainstream,
ex-hippies grounded by the tedium of searching for the almighty dollar and
paying the mortgage and feeding the family. They are lawyers,administrators,
teachers,soldiers,sailors,doctors and insurance salesmen.

Their remaining free spirit has been worked into a humor and wit that allows
for a fierce, quiet independence of thought that hides behind a facade of
"normalcy".   Our hair may be shorter and our clothes more conservative, but
many still strive in a silent "rage against the machine"
Perhaps driving an at-least-ten-year-old Vanagon / Westfalia does cause a
stirring of that old "up the organization"...planned obsolescence, et al.

Many times I have sat at a redlight in my Vanagon as a Giant $45K SUV pulls
up beside me and with a smug inner smile I know that I really have what they
have been sold and probably think they own...the "ultimate get away
machine". They can't camp, cook and sleep in the thing; most can't hold a
candle to what I can carry in and on my van, eighty per cent will never
leave the road and travel as mine has to a stream high in the mountains or
low in a valley, literally away from it all...no matter what their back
road, kayak carrying, ATB bike riding ads might be pushing.  I am free to
choose to be different.

But as I'm sure many of you feel...the comradery of the list can only be
described as a community of like minded people...each different and
distinct. And back when our vans were built, who woulda thunk we would be
brought together on a medium like this?

False perceptions or not I'm glad to be here on the list.

--
Stephen Steele
'91 Caravelle
Chillicothe, OH

ps: would the bios would be functional in dispelling this myth?