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Date:         Thu, 1 May 2014 11:16:03 -0500
Reply-To:     JRodgers <jrodgers113@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         JRodgers <jrodgers113@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Small Trip Report - the weekend Van-about
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Took my Vanagon and went off this weekend past for a Van-about. Could easily have been a walk-about as wonderfully slow as these old VW buses go. Went down to South Alabama and North Florida where I got some of my raising. Of particular interest to me was Andalusia, Ala. named after a place in Spain - given that the Spanish came through this region first. Spent first through sixth grades there., - 1944 through first half of 1950. My two old schools still stand. first grade School - Three Notch School is now town hall, an 6th grade school - Church Street School is the city art center.

Out of Andalusia a few miles is the Carolina Community. Went to the church there and visited the cemetery where a number of kinsmen are interred. It is my family tradition that periodically we go to cemeteries and commune with our ancestors. Helps us stay connected and know who we are and where we came from. Of note this trip was Thomas Lowell Rodgers - aka Big Rodgers - to the men in his platoon as they battled across Sicily and Italy in WW II. He was a Pathfinder - a paratrooper with a very dangerous job. After surviving Italy, he volunteered for the behind the lines jump into Germany in preparation for the invasion of Germany. He was killed instantly by a German sniper's bullet to the head. He was twenty-three. If anyone would like to read a fascinating story about him and his platoon - look up a book titled "Those Devils in Baggy Pants" by Ross Carter - who was with Big Rodgers in Italy. the Germans called them that because Our Boys tucked their trouser legs into their boot tops and they bagged over. And they were such bad-asses the Germans were terrified of them. They were boys off the farms of America and knew how to fight and give their all for country. and they did! We would be under a Nazi Flag today had they not done so.

Did try to stay at a campground by a lake. Learned real quick that wouldn't work. Got a motel instead. Mosquito nets now on order.

Ol' Red ran like a champ the whole journey. There was one place he hiccuped once but that was it. A single hiccup out of 600 miles.

Developed a very small leak in the coolant tank. A crack. A new tank goes in today. 26 tear old plastic with a crack is always suspect no matter how well it's patched.

It was a grand Van-about - got to do it again soon!

John


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