Passages: Goodbye VW

Murphys, Ca - January 2025 -- I bought my first car in 1962, financed $1,685 based on having a fulltime job in Atlanta.

The brand new foam green Volkswagen bug was perfect for me, living in the city and in a position to get reimbursed handsomely for driving it at work. I had waited about 8 weeks to get the car because in those days you ordered a car and tried to be patient until it arrived. When it came it was $100 or so more than the contract because it had a sun roof -- an extra-- and the dealer said to take it or leave it. Never regretted the decision. The last in a long string of family VWs across 60 years is rolling down the highway with someone else at the wheel today. We sold our much-enjoyed 2002 VW Eurovan Winnebago Camper.

It was time to let someone else enjoy the adventures. That camper carried us from the Mexican border almost to Canada, and all over the Western states. During the peak of the Covid pandemic we drove off to Monument Valley in southern Utah, safely tucked into our little home on wheels. The van carried us to the Pacific Ocean, the desert, the high Sierra Nevada mountains, ghost towns in Nevada and our favorite Sequoia Big Trees Park. Usually we were with family or friends, or met them along the way. We had several VWs in between those early years and today. I traded the first bug for a sports car the year Pat delivered our first child, 1970, and we used her VW bug as our "big" family car for the next few years. It leaked so I caulked the sun roof shut which worked fine. But we towed a boat full of camping gear behind us when we went to the Florida Keys. We had worn that Bug out by 1977 from living too near Florida beaches. The wheel wells had large holes I patched with flattened Budweiser cans, and the floor under the battery disappeared one day and dropped the battery onto the ground. We sold that car for $300 to a former cop/copy boy at the Fort Myers News-Press and he used it, I was told later, to run away from his wife.

When we sold it we invested all $300 into a CB radio to go into our brand new school bus orange VW camper, and traveled all the way to the Rocky Mountains for the first time with two small children and lot of MandMs to keep them happy during the long trip. Eventually that camper made it across the years to Michigan, Ohio and across the country to California tucked inside a moving van. When we finally sold that van we could still smell chocolate whenever the heat was turned on, from the candy dropped by the children. Not too many years later a neighbor put a bright red VW on the market. He assured me it was in prime condition, and in fact he had started his young family in the back seat (his wife vehemently denied this).

We bought it, paid fair amount to restore it to almost new condition, and passed at it along to our children when they became drivers. The older child did well with it through high school, and when she left our younger child found the keys and went for an illegal ride that included jumping a curb and hitting a car or two. It was dented but not ruined, but in the interest of community safety we sold it to a co-worker at The Bee. Last I heard her family had completely restored it, and then it was stolen and disappeared. A sad ending to an adventurous VW saga. We had an extended VW gap after that, but one day after retirement I noticed a neighbor had this nice looking VW Eurovan Camper. Pat told her that if she ever wanted to sell it, just let us know. She did, and that is how we came to own our last VW in the long family line. We named her "Snowflake" as a subtle political statement, and enjoyed her company for almost a decade.

She's now gone off to live with some nice people near Santa Cruz, and we are looking ahead to the next chapter. It might just include some model VW. The electric ones look real attractive. Or maybe we are ready for a golf cart.