Date:         Thu, 6 Sep 2007 07:57:35 -0700
Reply-To:     Brendan Slevin <brendan@BELLATAZZA.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Brendan Slevin <brendan@BELLATAZZA.COM>
Subject:      Re: Remembering the First Bus
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Car and Driver has a small article about a son's mission to buy back the
family station wagon.  Seems we're all reminiscent about first cars, be it
our own first car or the first car we remember.  It wasn't a VW, but I
remember traveling miles and miles kneeling between the front seats of our
van and sleeping all bundled up in the "way back," too.  The car I'd love to
have back would be the 1961 Morris Minor my dad and I started restoring and
never finished.  I drove that car forver until it lost reverse.  Then I
chose my parking spots carefully and drove it some more.  Then it lost
first, then third, then I stopped driving it.  I think my dad ended up
selling it for $500 dollars.  I think it's still in Bend.  We have an
inordinate number of odd cars here.  Tons of Vanagons and Buses, about 8
different Morris Minors, a few old Minis.  I wonder what it is about Bend
that attracts the motoring oddities.



Brendan Slevin

84 GL Totoro (parts on the way!)

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. -T.S. Eliot





-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM] On Behalf Of
Jonathan Poole
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2007 7:34 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Remembering the First Bus

Sometimes I wonder why I am so devoted to the old air cooled campers.  The
amazing practicality of the Westy for my lifestyle of course justifys
keeping it around but when I remember the first bus, and the earlier VW's my
current desire to keep it air-cooled makes a lot more sense.


The first bus in my life was a very clean, green '74 Westy with all of the
trimmings, a 914 engine and an auto trans.  Among the many early memories of
that van I remember claiming the way back as my own and vaguely the
imaginary world that spread from rear hatch to bench seat.  I remember being
tucked into fold out bed on late night drives with my older brother and
sister and my first time behind the wheel sitting in my father's lap when he
actually pulled his hands off of the wheel for a few seconds as we cruised
down the road.  That first van was a part of my life from right after I was
born until I was 5 or 6? and after owning a few beetles the first bus that I
purchased when I was 16 was again a '74 Westy.

My last memory of that bus was my trying to talk the guy from Florida out of
buying it by pointing out the weak brakes, scratches and such as my father
successfully did the opposite.  Did any of you buy that camper and take it
away from Grenada MS to Florida?  That would have been in '82 or '83 I
believe.

Jonathan Poole
'82 AC Westy