Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 09:33:40 EDT
Reply-To: BenTbtstr8@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Ben T <BenTbtstr8@AOL.COM>
Subject: San Francisco Vanagon Meet Morning Report
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Good Morning Folks.
Saturday, September 15th, a bunch of the SF Bay Area Listees and Listees from
all over California attended. We had two long distance dignitaries. Bob &
Diane Wing "flew" in from Michigan. Karl Wolz & Stephanie Wolz drove in from
Phoenix, Arizona. More on the long-distance award later.
The weather was overcast but mild. Not much wind so it was quite comfortable
until late in the afternoon when the infamous Ocean Beach fog started to roll
in.
We had a little unexpected excitement On one of the neighborhood locals came
by with her dog. Rob Tippey's dingo, Chloe, started chasing him around the
grounds. Things eventually settled down. Or so we thought. A few minutes
later we hear a very load bang followed by a the sound of a dog yelping. My
first thought was Chloe was in trouble. But no she was just sitting there
staring. I looked around and Mike Miller was fine as well. = ) As it turns
out the local doggie went unsupervised by his owner and ran into traffic on
Fulton Street. A nice new yellow Mercedes SLK had bumped him pretty hard. He
was obviously injured. The owner declined any offers of assistance and took
her poor dog home. I hope he comes through OK. Chris Radcliffe offered to
drive her to a vet.
Thank you all for making the day a success. I lost track of how many
attendees and vans were present so I will make corrections on the webpage for
the event as I get updated information. I suspect we would have had a better
turnout if it weren't for the recent events in New York. We did manage to
fill the entire length of the street with various Vanagons coming and going
as the day progressed. If everybody who attended stayed all day, we would
have wrapped the vans around the corner.
For a low profile event, we certainly managed to create several traffic
obstructions from onlookers. Several stopped out of curiosity and amazement.
A few Westies driven by non-participants cruised by during the day.
Special thanks to Detlev, Dunia & son plus friend Amir for bringing the
barbecue grill for all to use. Most folks brought a little something to
share. There was probably more Vanagon-speak than eating going on. I had a
late start and actually got stopped by a curious cop on my way to GG Park.
Thanks to Steve Schwenk for running down to let people know I was on my way
despite being busy with his houseguest. He came and joined the group later in
the day. Thanks to my friend Jero Saldajeno of Daly City for helping me get
the picnic table to the event. Guess I forgive him for bringing his Honda
Civic as his 84 GL was still broken at home.
The long distance award went to Karl Wolz despite Bob Wing's attempt to bribe
potential voters. He drove a rental but did have pictures of his Vanagon to
share. No pictures of his kids. = ) Special thanks to Tim Fong who donated
the LD price -- a very nice Swiss Army Knife. Both Bob & Karl received very
special secondary prices of REAL Philippine Ten Peso Bills. Now they can
actually pay for a phone call -- as long as it's local. The exchange rate is
presently $1 to P50.
I did set-up a sign-up sheet but few noticed it so I will need some
assistance in identifying some of the vans and attendees. There were a bunch
of maroon Westies which I am not able to distinguish. Please check out the
photos in the site and tell me which one is yours. One belongs to Warren.
Another to Brent. Another to Steve H. And yet another which was for sale from
a listee from the East Bay. More pictures to follow. Thanks to Chris (the
surf dude) Radcliffe for taking more photos and posting it to a site. You can
find the link in the event page. Please email me if you have photos to
contribute.
The last folks to leave were pensioner Al Knoll and his VVX Syncro and Steve
Hogge who arrived around 5pm (one of the maroon Styncros). Jsun Mills who
forgot about the event happened to walk by with his two dogs and significant
other (?). I finished the day with the stragglers Mike Miller, Karl &
Stephanie, & Tim (Timatoe) Fong at the Thai restaurant just on the other side
of the Park. It was past 9pm by the time we got out of there.
That's all folks -- for now. Please visit the site. I will update it with
photos and captions as they come in. Let's do this again next year.
http://hometown.aol.com/realsf/SSF.html
or click <A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/realsf/SSF.html">San Francisco
Van-O-Rama</A>
BenT