Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 11:41:14 -0700 (MST)
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: vanbondo@primenet.com (Rusty VanBondo)
Subject: "Name the plate" - Kharma Circles
What goes around comes around...
Especially if you fail to take it out of your name.
---------------------------------
In deciding on the possible license plate options for the '67 Resto from
Heck, many suggestions were submited by listees and non-listees. I took
Friday, 2/21/97 off and proceeded to the AZ State DMV. After sitting for 90
minutes my lucky number was finally called. PHEW! I thought "Hooray, the
final step in getting this "Three year venture into Hell- pile of joy" on
the road!" The clerk took the papers with the request for "67 SO42" and
started to enter it into the computer. "Nope, no one has it. It's yours."
Cool! then she mentions that it would be three to four months to get it in
the mail. In the mean time I need to purchase the regular AZ license plate
for an additional fee. HUH!!? DOH!
OK, whatever! Lets do it...
Then she says the computer was acting "funny" and wouldn't take it.
Frustrated she tried several times. Then she called the Supervisor over to
review her actions. The Supervisor says that the computer wouldnt take the
input because there was a "block" on my account.
"Why?," I asked.
Apparently you abandoned a 1965 VW station wagon bus in the rural area of
South Phoenix. You need to clean that situation up prior to getting the RFH
on the road.
I explained that I had sold the bus as a shell back in 1993. It was THE very
first bus that started me down the path of gathering parts for the camper
resto. You know how it is. You buy a bus for $300.00, take everything that
you need out of it and sell it for $300.00 or whatever. They are the POS
basket projects that beginner kids love. But they have those few trinkets
that you can't find any where so you spin 'em fast after nabbing the gems.
The kid who bought it knew exactly what he was getting when he bought it.
"No problems 'Dude' I'll have this Mutha on the road in no time!" (Right)
The bus had been seen at many swap meets and had been passed around like a
bad girl friend for years. Evidentally the last hosers who owned the thing
stripped the very last bits out of it, did a Saws-All party on it and
performed a "Midnight Run" on the carcass. I explained to the State DMV
agent that I had received a letter about this just after the first of the
year. When I followed up on the situation the impound yard had told me that
they owned it by then and had received a recycler's title for it, and I was
no longer in the picture. I was under the impression that the case was
closed. I had thrown the letter away by last Friday and was faced with a
undetermined "mondo" fine. My option was to provide the State with a letter
of sale or a copy of the record book from the Notary who did the deed for me
back in '93.
She had moved to Hemet, CA and was an ex- "ol' lady" of a distanced friend
of mine. Hmmm...
By now it was two and one half hours inside the DMV... The nicotine Jones
was kickin in big time. The sign on the wall said:
USAGE OF ABUSIVE LANGUAGE WILL RESULT IN A REFUSAL OF SERVICE!
It was all in red "cap" letters. =0
The agents of the State asked me to take a seat while they called the
wrecking yard for details. I played it cool- even for a Neurotic
perfectionist who was "dying" for a smoke.
Fifteen minutes later they said that the crushing yard never got a title for
it but had crushed it already. The fine was mine!
I agreed to pay a $50.00 "fine" and said forget it to the four month wait
for the plates. "Please just give me the Vintage/Antique plates"
Ironically the plate off the top of the stack reads
"02L8"
There is a very small HV preceding the 02L8 but I laughed and grabbed the
plates and went home to work on the bus untill 03:30 AM on Saturday morning
to get it ready to drive to the Corona de Tucson event. I had the best two
hours of sleep that night... ;-(
The new standing joke between Paula and I is:
"Hey Honey, Are you sure you wanna do a Westy Resto? No? ... Oh, Too Late!"
-VanBondo\
BTW: Acquaintences of mine are always joking that anything newer than a Barn
is too late. A late year 67 is, I guess, very much on the edge of being too
late to be a splittie!
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