Date:         Sat, 11 May 1996 13:59:28 -0400
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         dworkin@ari.net (H Steven Dolan)
Subject:      Do You Love Your Bus? (VL, very soppy, paean of praise to my dead bus)

Went over to my folks this evening (Mothers Day tomorrow, and they are going
to my bro's) to have dinner with them.  While dinner was cooking I was
talking with the folks about my new ('73) bus and my mother asked "So, do
you love this bus as much as you did your old one?  Well, that, brought on a
reverie on "The Luggage", my old ('78) bus, that died recently and the
intermediate '79 that I used to get my near-new engine back from the
accident scene in St. Augustine, FL, and the '73 Westy I am now the owner
of.  Mostly we talked about the process of bonding with a car.  I know this
is a bit long, but I thought I would share some of it with y'all.  

The Luggage was a yard bus when first I saw her, parked across the street
from my folks place, at the top of a very steep driveway.  She sat there for
4 years that I know of.  The PO had failed to adjust his rear brakes and the
poor beast had backed herself down the hill into a tree some time before I
first saw her.  That did in the rear end pretty thoroughly, to the point of
crushing the air box on the back if the engine.  The PO would come across
the street from time to time as I worked on my bug and pitch her virtues to
me from time to time (low miles, no rust, easy to fix), but I was always a
bit too broke and happy with Joseph, my  "bug of many colors" (a completely
different story).  

Finally, he came over, said he was moving and if I wanted her, she was mine
for $200, but I had to get her out of there in a month.  I bit.  Scrounged
up a junk engine, put the air box and exhaust system on her, a little WD-40
down each spark plug hole, and she started!  Took her home and began a
thorough going over.  Right at the beginning I zero'ed all the maintainance
items and replaced both rear doors.  Took care of the bent rear middle bar
by the rather simple expedient of attaching a cable to a tree and driving
away. BANG! and it was straighter! Three or four trips away from the tree,
and the rear door latched pretty good (though it always did leak a bit).

In the next six years I put over 100K miles on The Luggage.  Good miles.
Great miles.  We went 'round the country twice, both times without major
problems (who counts clutch cable breakage as a problem?)  I got to know her
ways, she got to know mine, and we had a damn fine relationship.  Certainly
the best I have ever had with a car, maybe the best anyone has had with a
car (maybe you think otherwise?  Wanna fight?)  Drove her to the top of the
coastal range just west of Ferndale, CA, opened the sliding door and sat
there watching the eagles soar in the pass.  Drove up a dirt road to the top
of butte over looking Zion NP and saw not only the park, but "a little
western flower, once white, now purple with love's wound".  Drove her to the
top of Reddish Knob on the VA/WV border and laughed at the 4-wheelers who
said that wasn't possible, then drove down a stream bed into WV that was too
rough for them.  Drove throught the Badlands at -40 in January with my down
sleeping bag unzipped at the bottom to work the gas and tucked under my arms
at the top.  I did damn near everything you can do in a car in that car and
enjoyed the hell out of every minute of it.  Even at the last, she skidded
left to crush the passenger side nose and save me from broken legs.  Loved
that car!

The intermediate bus, a '79, was bought in a rush.  I wanted to save the
engine, the tires, and a couple of near-new replacements I had recently
made, but was unhappy with this body even as I bought it.  Though the frame
turned out to be solid, this bus was a rust bucket from get-go.  Bought
under duress, loaded with gewgaws, this was not a bus I would have bought
under normal circumstances.  Worse, as I pulled out of the shop, the front
brakes siezed and I had to go back amd have The Luggage's calipers switched
onto it.  The drive back from Florida was hell.  The gas tank turned out to
be full of rust and clogged the fuel lines.  Drive 30 miles, rest 30 minutes
at the start, it got worse and worse as I travelled north.  The poor thing
finally died 50 miles south of DC, and I had to call for assistance.  I got
home 30 hours after leaving Florida, in a friend's car.  By that time, had
it been pristine, low mileage, and gold plated; I still would not have had
that car.

Finally the current question, "Do I love this bus as much as my old one?"
Well, I don't think I do.  I don't think I can.  Over time I may get to know
and love this car too, but not as much, and not in the same way.  First she
hasn't named herself, yet.  I don't name 'em, they do that themselves, and
if they don't, they are just cars.  Second, my financial situation is
nowhere near as good this time around and she is on the road held together
by duct tape and baling wire at this point, though I have promised her a
complete going-over ASAP, and she has been understanding beyond all reason,
so far.  To an extent, she is closer to the car of my dreams (she's a
Westy!), but the wrinkles in her floor remind me of what I could have done
for the Luggage, had I been closer to home.  Maybe over time, I will get her
out west and show her around.  Certainly the bed will be more comfortable
than the rubber floor mat with my feet tucked between the front seats.  I
dunno, give me a year or two to find out.

If you have gotten this far, thaanks for letting me sound off.  Tahnks for
not complaining about the time it took to download this.  Happy Mother's Day
(now buy her a card)



 
                           Steven Dolan
                           Alexandrian, VA

'73 FI'ed Westy