Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 12:42:36 -0800
Reply-To: Jake de Villiers <crescentbeachguitar@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jake de Villiers <crescentbeachguitar@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: funny NYT article about vans and families,
from the wife's perspective
In-Reply-To: <BLU120-W10E2CCF263928628F7703DAC4C0@phx.gbl>
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Thanks Aaron, that's a great story.
On Jan 4, 2008 10:21 AM, Aaron Pearson <aarondpearson@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Modern Love
> A Diesel Engine Woke Up Our Marriage
>
>
> By MELANIE GIDEON
> Published: November 18, 2007
>
> WHENEVER my husband casually says, "Hey, hon, come take a look at this Web
> site," I know it's going to cost me. All of our largest purchases were
> preceded by my being summoned to his computer in this manner. So, three
> years ago, when he said this a few weeks before his 40th birthday, I knew it
> was really going to cost me, and I don't mean just financially.
> Skip to next paragraph
> David Chelsea
>
> E-mail: modernlove@nytimes.com
>
> "Check this out," he said, pointing. "Isn't it cool?"
>
> I glanced at the Ford E-350 on his screen. It looked like the sort of
> vehicle that shuttles retirees to the local mall. "Kind of," I replied.
>
> He frowned and said: "It's not just any old van. It's a camper. It would
> be perfect for us. You said you wanted to see the West. "
>
> I did want to see the West, in theory anyway. In fact, seeing the West was
> one of the reasons we moved with our young son to California. But travel
> takes so much planning, and as I've gotten older I'm increasingly less
> willing to tolerate discomfort: the crowds, the traffic, everybody trying to
> reach the same place at the same time.
>
> His fingers pounded at the keyboard. "It's got captain's seats."
>
> "What's a captain's seat?"
>
> "That means it's very, very comfortable."
>
> "Nice," I said, getting back to my book.
>
> Ten minutes later, he said, "I'm going to get one for us."
>
> "Us?" I said.
>
> "Yes, us — you know, you and me?"
>
> The subtext being: Aren't you lucky you married a man who wants to buy a
> family van as his midlife-crisis vehicle instead of a Porsche Carrera GT?
>
> The good news is, he found a used van. The bad news: it was in South
> Dakota. So he paid somebody to fly to South Dakota, pick up the van and
> drive it back.
>
> "It's an amazing deal," he told me. "It only has 15,000 miles on it, and
> the woman is a motivated seller."
>
> Once the van was on its way, my husband told me what he had learned from
> the sales representative handling the deal through the Web site. The woman
> was not the original owner: her son was, or had been. He had bought the van
> to go kayaking in the most untouched places. Then one day he went out in his
> boat and never returned. This van had delivered him to his death. And now
> his heartbroken mother had sold it to us.
>
> "You have to give it back," I told him. "He died in it."
>
> "He didn't die in it. He died in his kayak."
>
> "Well, he might as well have died in the van," I said. "He was in the van
> right before he died."
>
> My husband sighed.
>
> I want him to be happy, for us to be happy. It seems every day we hear
> that another couple has decided to call it quits. More often than not, the
> wife leaves the husband.
>
> When talking divorce with these women — mothers, like me, of small
> children — we speak in a shorthand that ricochets around in my head like the
> rhymes of Dr. Seuss.
>
> They say: Feeling dead. Dead in bed. Too much snore. There's got to be
> more.
>
> I say: Turn his head. His head in bed. You'll have no more. No more snore.
>
> Now, there are plenty of good reasons to end a marriage, but each time I
> hear of another pending divorce I can't help but re-evaluate my own
> marriage. Do I want more? Does he? And how do I know if what I have is
> enough?
>
> When the van finally arrived, I realized it was not the same as the one in
> that first picture I saw on the Web site. This was no ordinary van for
> transporting the elderly. It was a 4x4 Rock Crawler version, with tinted
> windows, a roof rack and a camper extension that explodes out the top. Built
> to climb rock gorges and traverse rivers, our van also features on its front
> bumper a cattle-guard contraption that must be handy when plowing through
> herds of wildebeests in the Serengeti but is presumably unnecessary in the
> suburbs.
>
> As I circled the van, trying to hide my shock, the nice couple next door
> drove by in their Taurus. The man stuck his head out the window, pumped his
> fist at my husband and gave a yodeling hoot of solidarity. The woman
> shrugged her shoulders at me, her face scrunched up, as if thinking, "How
> will this affect our property value?" The hulking black behemoth was so big,
> it spilled out of our driveway and into the street.
>
> "It's more of a truck than a van," my husband conceded.
>
> "Yes," I said. "Yes, it is."
>
> "Just give it a chance," he said.
>
> I felt turned inside out, but it's his insides that I'm wearing on my
> outsides. Every time I walk out of my door, it's there: 10,000 pounds of
> metal, gears and after-market hydraulics announcing to the entire
> neighborhood that someone in this house is having a midlife crisis.
>
> He attempted to woo me with the van's charms — the things he thought would
> appeal to me: the shower, the portable toilet, the diesel engine.
>
> The diesel engine! Diesels can go a million miles, he claimed, and in a
> pinch they can run on corn and potatoes.
>
> The downside to diesel is that we can barely hear one another above the
> roar of the engine, and communication with our son, who seems to be about
> eight feet behind us in the back seat, is impossible.
>
> So we developed a primitive sign language consisting of exaggerated
> gestures. Imaginary spoon to mouth: Are you hungry? Finger pointed at
> crotch: Need to go to the bathroom? Mother's head cupped in hands: Why
> didn't I look at that Web site more carefully?
> Skip to next paragraph
> E-mail: modernlove@nytimes.com
>
> My husband tried to bring me on board by asking for my input: "Let's talk
> about where to go on our first camping trip."
>
> "What about Oregon?" our son suggested.
>
> "Baja?" said my husband.
>
> "San Francisco?" I said, which is five miles away.
>
> My husband ordered maps from the AAA. He sketched out routes. He talked
> weather and strategies for trading off on driving. He didn't yet realize I
> had no intention of going anywhere in that thing. It smelled of mold, plus
> my husband confessed that you have to empty the toilet by hand.
>
> "What's the point of a Porta Potti if you have to clean it out every time
> you use it?" I asked, trying not to gag.
>
> "It's for emergencies. Like if we're stuck on the highway in a blizzard."
>
> "Why would we be stuck on the highway in a blizzard?"
>
> "That's the whole point. That we could be stuck in a blizzard. Wouldn't
> that be fun? We'd be the only ones on the highway all cozy and warm."
>
> Because everybody else, he failed to add, would have listened to the
> weather forecast and stayed home.
>
> Eventually I had to tell him: "I'm not coming on the camping trip."
>
> "You want us go to without you? Seriously?"
>
> "Yes." What I really meant was: "No, I don't want you to go without me,
> but I don't want to go where you're going."
>
> My husband and son continued the trip discussions without me. They decided
> their inaugural camping trip would consist of a Saturday night in Point
> Reyes, about 50 miles from our house. One last invitation was extended, and
> I politely declined. Finally I was off the hook.
>
> The morning of their expedition I climbed into the van to load it with
> their requested dinner supplies: hot dogs, Gummy Worms and chocolate soy
> milk. Reaching into the cabinet, I discovered something wedged into the very
> back. It was a map of the Big Sioux River in South Dakota, left behind by
> the young man who died.
>
> I felt strangely dislocated as I traced the blue tributaries with my
> finger. I imagined him looking at the map on his final day and asking
> himself, "Where do I go next?" He couldn't have known that "next," for him,
> was not going to be a very good place. But what choice did he have? Stay
> home?
>
> His zeal for life (or more to the point, my lack of zeal) was startling to
> me. Was it possible I was the one having the midlife crisis?
>
> I used to be less afraid. In the early years of our marriage, my husband
> and I climbed mountains, ran Class 3 rapids in a rickety canoe, and camped
> along the way. On rainy nights we slept in a tent, and on starry nights we
> slept outside. We were in our 20s; our needs were simple.
>
> We lived dangerously, which is to say we were up for anything. We didn't
> think about what things cost. We thought only about the cost of not doing
> things. Which is exactly why — I suddenly understood — my husband had bought
> the van for us.
>
> And then, just as suddenly, news of my son's rescheduled soccer tournament
> ended the excursion — for the moment, at least. But there's no stopping my
> boys; they decided instead to simply camp in the driveway.
>
> From the window, I watched them depart. My son was beside himself with
> excitement, clutching his pillow, his Nintendo DS pressed to his chest like
> a bible. He looks as if he was going to the moon. They waved to me as they
> climbed aboard. Soon I heard the whoomp-whoomp of a bass and shrieks of
> laughter — they were having a dance party.
>
> I'VE hardly had a night to myself since my son was born. Back in the house
> I poured myself a glass of wine and ate my Burmese takeout. Later, stretched
> out in bed, surrounded by stacks of books and magazines, I reveled in my
> creature comforts. But as the hours passed, a vague unease settled over me,
> an odd kind of claustrophobia that wasn't about the physical space I'm in,
> but the sheltered life I'm living.
>
> Sometime after midnight, I finally pushed aside the covers, grabbed my
> pillow and dragged myself from our warm bed. Outside, the chilly air smelled
> of eucalyptus and toasted marshmallows. In the distance, an owl hooted. I
> knew the mattress would be stiff, the headroom cramped, and I wouldn't
> sleep. But I opened the van door and climbed in anyway. The two people I
> love most in the world were out there, along with the promise of a richer,
> more adventurous life.
>
> Once we leave the driveway, that is.
>
> __________________________________________
>
> aaron
> '87 syncro westy ej22
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live.
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--
Jake
1984 Vanagon GL
1986 Westy Weekender "Dixie"
Crescent Beach, BC
www.crescentbeachguitar.com
http://subyjake.googlepages.com/
| 
