Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 20:47:31 -0800
Reply-To: Andrew Martin <campahvan@EARTHLINK.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Andrew Martin <campahvan@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject: Re: The hah hah of good living...
In-Reply-To: <43DD7FB3.1000904@gwtc.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Amen Brother! Did Annie have a sister named Lisa over in Northampton at
Smith? My 63 Beetle didn't have curtains; we relied on magic smoke then
fog. Now back to my carpentry projects and my Vanagon.
Youth is wasted on the young.
Andrew
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Jeffrey Olson
Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 6:54 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: The hah hah of good living...
Hi Malcolm,
This is just me bud, but I'd rather be a campin than a buildin ? (also,
would rather not re-invent the wheel...) BTDT, & now, the darn t-shirt
shrunk !!!???!!! :o)
Regardless of this fellow's kind and weird answer - campin rather than
buildin - which it is to someone who loves to work with wood/composites
- there is another ethos - build your interior. (I love the guy's
attitude though...!!! I have to take a drug test to maintain employment...)
The Westy grey walled stuff is really lowest common denominator when it
comes to defining how you want to move through space inside your camper.
I owned a 66 SO-42 westy camper for years and years, and now that I'm
putting my subie engine in the vanagon, will spend a number of months
crafting the interior. I want the bed/seat frame. But I think I may
just build my own interior for the pure, rapacious joy that creating
something engenders...
Recreating the wheel? If that's what I do and know where every bolt and
screw, every mistake and unique attibute is - then the time I spend is
well-worth it.
I'm going to spend $6000 on an engine and installation, and $1400 for
the vehicle itself. I know what I want - and, what I want is in large
measure, a product of making love in the 66 westy...
I remember being parked in a rest area of I-84 in 1974 when the freeway
was brand new. My girlfriend was totally weirded out about going to
Hampshire College and having me around. She was the archetypal upper
middle class beautiful blonde woman who was 19 years old and very, very
neurotic.
One of the ways she showed that she really "did" appreciate me was being
willing to make love whenever I wanted. I never felt she initiated
getting naked, but she was "always" willing to look me in the eye and
follow the direction my hands were moving...
I'd driven from Alabama to Virginia in one long day - 1000 miles, and
was seeing stick figures running in front of the bus as I drove my 60
MPH. The stick figures looked backwards and gestured me to move
forward. There I was, in the middle of the night, with five or six
little stick persons leading me one. What was I to do???
The upper layer to this was that two days before we'd driven through
Albuquerque. My 66 bus had a 1300 in it. The interstate out of
Albuquerque is uphill. The wind that night was blowing 40 mph plus. I
was driving in second gear at 30 mph - on the freeway...
Annie had prepared the back of the bus and taken off all her clothes. I
could look in the rear view mirror and all I saw was her naked body
diffused under the weak domelite. She presented herself in about as
many positions as I could ever imagine. I continued to drive - nowhere
to stop.
Needless to say, I loved every moment of her getting loose. But I
couldn't find a place to stop. NO rest area, no side road, no place for
us to reaffirm being-in-the-present, meaning there was no future. For
the 15 minutes she did her rapacious act I was a danger on the freeway.
I only monitored being in the lane. My eyes and heart and surging,
testosterone driven lust overwhelmed being safe.
30 years later I marvel at my decision to continue driving. Annie went
to sleep and I continued to drive. I drove to somewhere in Alabama,
pulled over, crawled back to the bed, and passed out. Annie was out,
and so was I.
The next day was filled with sexual tension and we stopped at a couple
rest areas to relieve ourselves. The one I remember involved moving all
the luggage onto the floor and into the front seats and putting down the
bed.
My 66 had curtains on springs that hid what was happening inside from
outside view. I think I like this memory because I was 21 and Annie was
19, and we were on a voyage of discovery. Annie eventually freaked out
and I had to leave, but until the day before we got to Amherst, she was
present and using her anxiety to be really, really present.
This anxiety made making love a couple orders out of the ordinary. We
parked at one of the rest areas and lustily moved the stuff on the rear
bed to the front of the bus. We grabbed at each other and spent
precious minutes kissing and holding each other, our breathing slowing
growing louder and shorter.
Towards the end of making love we heard a small, piping voice that
couldn't have been more than ten feet from the bus say to her mom, "Why
is that car jumping up and down?" This is while we were making the bus
jump up and down.
We smuggled our laughter and slowed our rhythm so as to hide what we
were doing, knowing full-well the child's mom was envious of us...
So why do I want to put a subie engine in the vanagon and build an
interior based on my expectations/vision? Why does the fellow's quote
above seem slightly absurd?
Owning a vanagon is nothing. Investing meaning in owning a vanagon is
very much something. I got an e-mail earlier today from a fellow who
thought, based on my question, I wasn't competent to do a Subie
conversion.
He doesn't understand, or his comment doesn't reflect understanding.
Why does anyone own a vanagon/westy/synchro???
It's not rational. I don't think a person can make an argument that is
rational unless s/he is moving to bio-diesel propulsion. I am lusting
to spend the hours necessary to wind my way through a complex mechanical
process. I have no doubt that I will be successful, and drive my 165
horsepower subie driven vanagon to the west coast to find a westy bed
and rear cabinet... I will craft an icebox that sits behind the
passengers seat, and I don't care if someone else thinks I'm stupid or
obsessed. I am...
I think young men easily dismiss - a judgment, yes... They don't
realize that craftmanship is pretty much all there is outside of the
love of a good woman...
Jeff Olson
Martin, SD
