Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 21:26:06 -0600
Reply-To: Jim Felder <felder@KNOLOGY.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jim Felder <felder@KNOLOGY.NET>
Subject: Re: Families - what do they know?
In-Reply-To: <00b201c73e69$c7f5ee60$a65d9904@gpa207joel>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
My family loves my Vanagons. My wife drives the 90 often (nobody
drives the diesel but me, they are afraid of the five speeds and the
glow plug starting procedure). My daughter and her husband and kids
and my wife love to camp in the westy. My brother keeps asking
questions when he comes here from texas about where he can get one.
My 84-year-old mother, who I drove to New York and back in it,
comments on what a great car it is and what good shape it is in every
time she is in it, which is fairly often.
My brother-in-law loves it because I have moved his kid from Brooklyn
to NY with it, and it has been involved in every family move since
1990. It's been to numerous out-of-the-way places full of people and
luggage. Another brother-in-law has taken it to Ohio several times.
Back when I was in the trade show exhibit designing and building
business, it took part of Motorola's exhibit to trade shows as close
as Atlanta and as far away as Las Vegas. It also hauled exhibitry for
many other US and European customers (so it's a piece of technology
history).
Everybody in my extended family has benefited from my Vanagons and
they thank me for it often. They always ask about my cars when I see
them and keep up with upgrades and goings-on. Some of them, traveling
with me, have met other listees when I've stopped to pick up parts on
my journeys. Many of the younger ones have grown up with my Vanagon
and have never known me to drive anything else. Actually, they are
not so young anymore.
My parents were friends with the original owner of my 83 westy, and
in fact the original owner and his wife were at my parents' house
playing cards the night their house burned, and they lived in the
westy in their driveway as it was being rebuilt. One of my best
friends acquired it from that family, unbeknownst to me, and then
died on assignment in China, which led to me ending up with the car.
And then there's the general public who seem enthralled. It might be
a middle-schooler giving me a peace sign or the middle-aged woman
pulling up next to me in the drug store parking lot and asking me
"what year?? which, as my granddaughter know by now, signals at least
30 minutes of VW bus-related conversation to follow.
Vanagons are totally ingrained in our family history, the way that
splitties and loafs were a generation ago.
We all love 'em.
Jim
On Jan 22, 2007, at 3:10 PM, joel walker wrote:
>> freighter. I was wishing I had at least one bus loving person with
>> me at the
>> time though.
>
> i've lived with that for 36 years now ... nobody in the family even
> cares to TRY to understand why i like vw buses. they couldn't
> understand why i got the first one, but they sure called me up to move
> things around the family in it!!! i was the one who got to move
> furniture from birmingham to mobile,and more junk from mobile to
> charlottesville, and later from montgomery to texas!!! and every time
> afterward, "when are you gonna get a real car instead of that piece of
> junk?".
>
> my sister still does it, even though SHE drives a chrysler minivan and
> has since they came out in 1984 ... she's on her sixth or seventh one
> (i can't keep up). she goes and gets a new one every time they come
> out with more "features".
>
> so what do i do? i say to hell with 'em and keep on driving the bus.
> :)
> i didn't buy the bus to make anybody happy but me ... and that's what
> it does,
> and the rest of the dysfunctional bio-related bozos can just go jump
> in the septic tank! :)
>
> unca joel
>
