We had seasons in the sun

So here I am in NYC. Yesterday afternoon I was traveling north to the city on the Garden State Parkway from my parents’ home. I had my trusty ’79 VW camper bus Wolfgang vacuumed and scrubbed, and all the cargo organized, and he was fresh out of a random foreign-car repair shop in south Jersey sporting a new inspection sticker. He was ready as he could be for the road trip back down South that my friend Leah and I had planned to begin on Monday, after I spend a few days in the city. Old Wolfgang didn’t have as much pep as I’d hoped him to have after the tune-up and other adjustments, and after about 40 minutes of driving, the power got weaker and weaker, the bus went slower and slower until I was only going about 30. Finally blue smoke came billowing out from the dashboard vents and I was leaving a cloud back behind me, so I pulled over. And I didn’t know it then, but that, on one of the biggest arteries of my home state, turned out to be the last gasp of my longtime companion Wolfgang.

It took two separate tows thanks to the rules of the Parkway by two friendly dudes who were both about five years younger than Wolfgang and ten years younger than myself, but I got the bus to my trusted mechanic. Long ago, I dubbed my VW specialist the Leprechaun, since he's a wee little man from the auld sod. Maybe I’d been foiled by that sketchy repair shop in south Jersey, but that wouldn’t happen with these guys. The Leprechaun’s son Billy, who loves me, welcomed me with a hug and asked had I been back to Ireland lately. As he told me about his recent visits, along came a guy from the next town over from where I grew up, who I learned was the uncle of someone I went to high school with. It was so comforting to be back where people knew me and knew where I was from, where people looked the way I was used to people looking, and where they assume everyone's cool with a little casual racism.

After the Leprechaun assessed Wolfgang this morning, Billy called me with the bad news: the engine was shot. It would have to be replaced, to the tune of several thousands of dollars that I do not have. And so I had to make a decision about my old friend who’s been with me through through modest speeds and slower for the past ten years.

Ten years ago, Wolfgang brought me to Florida for the wedding of my first friend that got married. She has divorced, remarried, and had a baby since then, and my other friend at the wedding has married, divorced and remarried since then. My brother went, too, and he’s married and had two kids since then. It seems like the only one those adult milestones have never reached has been me, and I'm still happily driving the same car a decade later. (By the way, the first tow-truck driver was astounded to learn my age, he claimed he thought I was more like 22.)I'm not saying the car equals eternal youth, but I might be saying that it has helped.



I've had more fun thanks to Wolfgang than most folks can attribute to a vehicle. Wolfgang has taken friends and I camping in Vermont, PA, NY, and NJ. I never had to worry about where I'd be crashing at night as long as I had driven. Since Wolfgang comes with two built-in, fold-out beds, I’ve been known to stay in the motel Volkswagen at the Jersey Shore or outside of friends' places when the couches were full. My friends all know the 'ganger, and he has absorbed some of their cassette contributions, which have in turn faded to uniform pastels. I've stocked the little cupboard under the sink with a collection of vintage camp supplies and cookware in the official colors of the '70s, which not coincidentally are also Wolfgang's colors: avocado green, goldenrod, and orange. And just to be extra ridiculous, I installed yellow shag carpeting inside, recycled from KarTek's house. Just the other day, my three-year-old neice called the camper van my house, which wasn't that far off; Wolfgang has been like a little second home on wheels.

Many people probably thought it folly to drive such an old car they assumed was a clunker, but I’d bet that Wolfgang broke down a lot less than most other cars, and at nearly 30 has had a hell of a lot longer lifespan. Other onlookers would just be happy to see the old breadloaf running; many was the time I'd stop for gas, see a certain look in an older dude's eye, and know he was about to tell me that he used to drive one of these years ago. Kids would just point and smile. And then there's the secret club of fellow VW beetle & bus drivers--we beep and wave when we pass another one. And, in a way, Wolfgang's continued functionality was a nose-thumb at the disposable culture of today.

After Billy gave me the news, I waited til the train pulled into Penn Station so as not to make a scene, then called the bf and bawled into his not-very-surprised ear, and he said it wasn't like it was a family member or a pet and I said that it was. Then I called my parents and cried into both of their not-very-surprised ears. My dad, reknowned for some of his folksy wit and wisdom, said with no lack of sympathy, "You ran the shit out of that thing. You ran it into the ground." And it was true.



The decision was clear even to stubborn old me, and even I had known embarking on such a long trip was taking a big gamble. One hour after I was first told I had a choice to make, I was walking downtown from Penn Station and sat down in Madison Square Park to call Billy back to tell him I was going to have to sell the bus. Like everyone has been saying, he pointed out that it's better the breakdown happened here than somewhere in the Deepest South. He's letting me keep Wolfgang there for two weeks while I find a buyer, no charge, and he's going to put the word out at the VW show this weekend. Just as I hung up, bagpipers at the other end of the park began playing a mournful song. It was not a tune of the happy parade variety, it was a sending-off-dead relatives song, a dirge for shooting Spock's coffin into space. I had to keep walking out of earshot so I wouldn’t dissolve into a puddle.

Goodbye, old friend.



(If anyone reading this sees me in the next few days weeks, it's probably best to not even bring it up unless you want the waterworks to start. And if anyone out there is interested in buying, let me know.)