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Date:         Thu, 6 Sep 2007 09:38:59 -0500
Reply-To:     joel walker <jwalker17@EARTHLINK.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         joel walker <jwalker17@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject:      Re: Remembering the First Bus
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
              reply-type=original

my very first bus, i guess, was a 1968 bus that the australians used as a sort of a headquarters bus in vietnam. i had always liked the splittie buses and i was very angry at vw for changing the style ... they weren't supposed to do that!! the beetles still looked the same!

well, another couple of years and i softened a bit. even grew to like the sliding door. :) so when i got out of the army in november 1970, with $1700 cash backpay in my pocket, 2nd thing i did when i got home was to hie my hither to the vw dealer and see what he had. well, he didn't have any colors i liked. :( but they could order it. and for $600 extra, i could get TWO sliding doors! but it was a six week wait. :( so there was a new 2nd vw dealer opened up across town, and i drove over there to see what he had ... a beautiful white-over-blue 4-speed 7-passenger standard bus. i was doomed. $3024.95, tax tag and title. i was 26 years old, and had to get my parents to co-sign the note (which the bank loved! since i was putting $1700 down) cause i had no job and was going back to college on the GI bill ... used the GI bill payments to make the car payments. :) got a job working in the computer center (which led to a lifetime love-hate relationship with computers) to pay for food and books and insurance and gas. bus became known as "the Blue Goose" ... had something to do with an old song about "i wanna go where the wild goose goes", except blue instead of wild.

put many miles on the bus. moved back home one summer break, and loaded everything ... every single item i owned ... into that bus. top speed 45mph. really. it was WAAAAAY overloaded, but i just didn't know it. if i'd had a wreck, it would have looked like a tornado hitting a mobile home! ferried family around to visit other family members, as far away as virginia and colorado. note: lowland-setup carbs do NOT run well at 5000 feet. :) managed to get the bus up over 100 mph going down a mountian in new mexico. unintentionally, i might add. downhill with a tailwind is my excuse. didn't seem to bother it.

but i didn't heed the small print in the Idiot's Guide about buses being under more strain than beetles and needing valve replacement early ... sure enough, 88,000 miles and bam goes a valve on cylinder #3. :( $700 later, i'm back on the road, but a bit less sure of myself and my ride.

but oh, the times we had and the places we went. :)

got stuck on a gulf beach cause i saw a rambler station wagon driving along on the sand a figured, if he can do it, so can i.

wrong.

after digging myself out and lowering the air pressure in the tires, and making it back to the pavement, i noticed the rambler had tires that were about 18 inches wide. :(

went down a stage coach road in colorado that got so steep i actually had to go up one hill in reverse to get back to civilization.

took it to chicago and found out that you have to plug the engine air vents with plastic garbage bags at night or your engine compartment will fill up with snow. :) and that the normal heater in a bus is woefully inadequate for chicago ... slush on your feet will REfreeze on the rubber mats ... with the heater going full blast.

and everything went along pretty well ... til 1979.

that hussy siren, the Vanagon, came to town. my lovely marriage to the 71 bus was destroyed, wrecked by a pretty new face in town. i was hopelessly sunk. went to the dealer for test drives at least five times ... they KNEW i was hooked. traded the old bus on a brand new 1980 vanagon.

and oh, the times we had and the places we went. ;)

which was better? i can't really say. both were good off-road buses, but the 71 was a little bit better ... both were good highway buses, but the 80 vanagon was noticeably better.

i've been driving vanagons ever since, even when i managed to find a 1968 double-cab pickup. and now i want a vanagon double-cab pickup! double-cabs are the coolest ... just so damned ... handy! i don't understand why other companies don't make fold-down gates on the pickup bed ... the gates make everything easier.

but i have pictures of the 71 bus in various places. even one with it shined up sooo purty and reflecting the grass and pine trees. it was a really good bus. faithful and stalwart and true. i'd like to think it's still out there, and i look closely at the ads for any 1971 blue-white bus ... but i don't know.

as i get older, i think about those much-simpler days ... i guess nothing has really changed, except me getting older and there being more idiots on the road. but it sure seems like those were the good old days. and certainly the good old buses. :)

unca joel


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