Date:         Fri, 7 Jul 1995 20:40:20 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         wabbott@townshend.Corp.Megatest.COM (William Abbott)
Subject:      Little Martha, a poem

	Little Martha, My VW Pickup Truck

	My tool kit has a 19 millimeter socket,
	A 17, 13 and 10
	You can tell by these numbers, 
	If you've wrenched on german cars
	That I'm working on "Little Martha" again.

	She's a curious sort of a pick up,
	With a front like a VW Bus
	But the back is a flat bed
	With sides that fold down
	Nine-feet-four, lightly spotted with rust.

	She's made out of 261-' parts
	The rarest of rare as you'll hear
	They made 'em for a decade
	But like a tape being replayed
	"We don't have it", doesn't matter which year.

	At a junk yard we salvaged brake reseviors
	Blackened with age and debris
	We cleaned them with pipe cleaners
	We bought at a crafts shop
	And rags wrapped 'round wires for free.

	Under her pedals and and hand brake
	The cover was missing- one I'd never seen
	We found a replacement and
	Pounded its dents out
	And I must paint it grey with a sheen.

	I've bought a motor and seals and a door latch
	and CVs and boots clean and new 
	I bought a brake master cylinder
	Twice, to get the right one,
	Not just one brake light switch tapped, but two.

	In Tijuana I bought a turn signal lens
	From the dealer for $35 bucks
	At the Kelly Park swap meet
	I bought the front emblem
	To shine up the face of my truck

	From two different mail order companies
	I bought replacement battery trays
	They were both the same part
	Though three times priced different
	And neither fit right, I'm sorry to say.

	Now its near time to install the motor
	After I paint a few pieces of tin
	And think I can rebuild the
	Side cargo hatch lock
	Which I drilled-out so I could get in

	Of course this story's far from over
	Up and running, new problems will show
	And I'll learn I suppose
	Why the Dread Former Owner
	Sold her cheap instead of fixing her mo'