Volkswagens, a special interest; etc.

[bobstad]

I got a private message from Deathegg, suggesting a new book about VW's Type III models out recently. I tried to reply, finding his mailbox quota has been exceeded so that no new messages are being accepted.

Here is my message to him; which I thought worthwhile enough to share:

Hey Bob,
Just FYI...new issue of Collectible Automobile (february 2013 issue) has large article on all the Type III's - squareback, fastback, etc. Pretty cool.

-Mark

Thanks, I'll see if I can find a copy.

Those cars were also once featured, in a glossy coffee table type book; The World's Ten Worst Cars. Known amongst mechanics as "Hitler's Revenge" this was for their oil coolers; unlike those on the bugs & buses, laid over ninety degrees right on top of the #3 cylinder-to give additional cargo space. Constantly plagued with engine failure, from overheating that cylinder: An aftermarket quick-fix; if a person could find a high-efficiency remote oil cooler, such as those manufactured by Perma-Cool.

If you have an interest in VWs in general; I did a high school junior year, book report project on an interesting title; Small Wonder, about the VW Beetle.

What always impressed me, is despite the Third Reich's increasing fiscal problems as the war deepened and went worse and worse against them; after the hostilities had ceased and an armistice was signed, all the money was still intact in the account German citizens had given to the government, in a plan whereby they were to be eventually given a family Volkswagen. That is incredibly curious, to say the least; if you ask me?

Nelson, Walter Henry, Small Wonder: The Amazing Story of the Volkswagen, Boston: Little, Brown, 1967. Small Wonder has gone through several reprints, since this first edition.

[Prafeston]

I'm going to look at a '69 Baja this weekend. Friend of mine is wanting to get rid of it, but it sounds like a project. I told him I'd check it out though.

[Bert]

Volk's wagen. Likely the English language adapted the German term for general public/common man when we started using the term "folks". In any case wagen is used much the same as our word 'carriage','vehicle', 'wagon' (as in station wagon), and even 'car'. So yeah "People's car" or "folks wagon" is pretty close.

[georgeb]

I had about a dozen type 3s back in the early 90s. They were sitting everywhere near me when I lived in San Antonio. I preferred them to type 1s (beetle, ghia) and type 2 (bus). The fronts could be lowered by moving the torsion bar one or two splines. I also liked the dual carbs.

[bobstad]

let's go fishin' 'stead of just a wishin'

PIcture 31.jpgPicture 10.jpgPIcture 31.jpgPicture 10.jpg

I preferred them to type 1s (beetle, ghia) and type 2 (bus). The fronts could be lowered by moving the torsion bar one or two splines. I also liked the dual carbs.

My '66 was love at first sight particularly adapted to a warmth of a household, coming with a mechanic's best friend who'd park with a "for sale" sign in the driveway: While our garage apartment resident with his girlfriend Linda, Tim Henderson; was trying to sell an amazing "hydro-electric powerplant blue" '68 Volvo station wagon he'd repainted and fixed up, my housemate Breezy eventually shipped to Hawaii instead. When I picked up Jay "Warlock Fisheries" Warell's faded factory "desert sand" square-back, I thought reminded me of a pregnant MGB-GT. There must've been a small flotilla of VW square-backs enlisted to drive by our bedroom and a half little rented cinder block palace, across the street from Meiners Oaks Elementary and kitty-corner from "world famous Alan Hooker's Ranch House Restaurant"-where I'd been interviewing for a wine steward's job when hired at the elementary school, one of Breezy's boyfriends eventually took who used to serve actor Robert Redford there.

A place whose income profits were used supporting Krishnamurti; whose famous "oak grove" talks took place on land beside Besant Avenue, just across a field from the back of the grade school. Where for nineteen long months, I had one of two janitors jobs along with biker band electric bass guitarist Curtis Lowe-who'd picked up rock moonlighting six and seven nights a week while in the Navy's personnel office, in Hong Kong during the Vietnam war era. I also coached a fine AYSO team of ten year-olds, though the first four games of our season until the grade school principal complained he thought this infringed on my custodian's work; when concurrently I was trying to manage raw foods vegetarianism, always drawing my energy down after two or three months of that. I'm the bearded character in the photo with a green tee-shirt Breezy gave me, featuring an Alladin's lamp on my chest.

Tim was frantic to sell me the Volvo whose "prestige" he was frequently touting, I guess in comparison to the lowly VW; while I ended up with the eight hundred dollar versus a thousand VW whose ruddy good looks and frequent presence, with the aforementioned parade of other Type III station wagons passing in front of our place on the corner of La Luna and El Robalar across from the elementary school; had me day-dreaming of easily mastering the mechanical particulars using John Muir's Idiot's Guide as fail-safe insurance, keeping the car reliably on the road with cartoon car charm & affability. Me as Mickey, Breezy as Minnie, with her nine year-old son John, along with Tim & Linda as the rest of our mouseketeers' infallible, inevitable cast of all beloved of one another characters. The first insect to hit the grease however, was the "sinister" Jay's selling me the car without my having first given the rig a test drive; when I found second gear synchromesh non-existent. Reminding me of a funny dream within the past year; of another woman friend in another clothing optional household prior to then, sitting nude on my chest trying to manage a strange stick shift pattern, with her backside to my face: Four forward, with reverse down and to the right; first down and to the left.

This led to my ending up, in the superior position; giving the nude Warell a full body massage, wherein were revealed either an insane tattoo artist's manic work or else good evidence of one of the more amazing of personal miracles.* The two half moon scars from under each armpit to below his buttocks where momentarily a great white shark had Jay as if not lunch at least a decent appetizer; until with perfect good luck from having seen an instant before he was hit, Warell poked the shark in the eye with his diving knife...escaping by being hauled into the dingy sized boat they'd been fishing from, just as the shark was about to snatch prey from the brine once again. I never did figure out how to lower the front end by moving the torsion bar splines as mentioned, though was always wanting to do so.

That square-back did however benefit greatly from my talents as auto-denizen the dozen years we cohabitated; with a pair of '50 one-ton black GMC panel truck front bucket seats, including a nifty passenger side jump seat which folded forward to allow rear seat entry; to a pair of great '67 Camaro front buckets bolted to a heavy galvanized sheet metal bracket I'd fabricated to replace the stock rear seat bottom frame, which tilted forward to access the battery, as if made for the car at the factory. At the same Brewster, WA wrecking yard the '50 GMC panel truck bucket seats came from; I got a ten dollar rear bumper made from pieces of heavy steel rail someone along with a matching front bumper, had made to use on another Type III towed behind one imagines, their motor home...which if that had been the '50 GMC would've been a remarkable sight, since the whole roof section behind the two front seats had been torched off and replaced by a large pickup style camper, custom fitted as an excellent adaptation to the old GMC crummy.

I'd been "apprehended" just hours before; by one of Washington's finest, a "wasp" squad car of the Washington State Patrol who seeing the semi-collapsed aluminum lawn chair I was using propped up with rope and lots of old mill ends as the driver's seat, gave me a warning ticket leaving the town of...someplace like Davenport, Creston, Wilbur or maybe even Bridgeport...where I'd often stopped at their local supermarket for a heaping helping of potato wedges, enough to attract the indecent attention of prurient minded citizens apparently willing to interest themselves in such matters...I was enjoying the perch like someone's formula one racer, this over time had become so well adapted to my purpose. Hint, Creston for sure; I'd bet your life on it!

Breezy my housemate where the Type III came from, was herself an amazing find; who'd taken the last seat on a packed county bus from Ventura to Ojai the day her yellow '72 Super Beetle was in the shop: Whose distinctive moniker was an adaptation of her recently divorced husband's last name Calabrese I've read is a California mafia name, with whom she'd fought a heavily contested custody battle over John she'd just won when we met. Who I'd become enamored of before the next time either of us stood that day getting off the bus; as we sat chatting like long lost familiars, both our feet atop an old footlocker in front of the seat on the bus, once my father's getting his pharmacy degree at WSU in Pullman, WA using the G. I. bill as a former chief petty officer whose exploits related to me made McHale's Navy seem a cub scout organization.

[bobstad]

Meanwhile; back at the bait shack...

Breezy was a one woman man magnet, whose familiar horde constantly got on my nerves in our clothing optional household, where the option was frequently exercised; who had a soft-touch job as a LVN doing the graveyard shift of seven hours until six each morning, caring for new-borns for whatever reasons needing extra hospital time at Ventura county general. Then she was home for a nap, with a little breakfast and socializing with me between the split shifts I worked at the elementary school; and off to her full time job in Ventura's Fantasia natural fabric clothing store; where she was assistant manager and buyer, working for a Danish man in his mid fifties who was in love with her and wanted to divorce his wife and marry Breezy.

Just as did one of two, of her tribe of male familiars my age I eventually whittled down to the pair I found tolerable; who owned a restaurant he managed with his wife next to Breezy's clothing store, whom themselves eventually sold that and ended up with a piece of property I must've driven past while living out of the VW, trying to find them; stopping at a nearby Trappist monastery near Pecos, N. M. they'd relocated to. Stephen Jeffrey, Breezy's other boyfriend I liked; is a local gardener in Ojai who at the time at least, ran a fleet of comely '65 Ford fleet-side pickups, each with an original design mural painted on the side of his trucks-with a beautiful landscape, his workers drove to use as their work trucks. He has sent me an Xmas card on one occasion, I'll sometimes write I've not done in decades; whose household made of a one time travel trailer enclosed with a porch converted to interior space, has featured one of Breezy's woman friends, who later became her companion living on Maui.

Interesting is I've dreamt of fathering the three daughters born to Breezy following our co-habitation, all birthed in Maui tidal pools. I saw the two eldest one day, during 1986 not long after I'd been accepted for SSDI/SSI assistance early in '85; when I'd moved back to Ojai from Mount Vernon, WA where I'd been studying with macrobiotic nutritionist Bruce Berkowsky, another woman friend Isolde Perry got me to do who later founded the Sunfield School and Farm in Port Townsend, WA; asking me to marry her visiting me in Ojai while Breezy was on vacation in Maui-Iso on her way to LA to see an uncle there, from Bellingham, WA. That balmy summer day in Ojai, I'd been riding my three-speed Raleigh Colt I'd carefully overhauled from a $15 special purchased soon after getting accepted for SSDI/SSI, adding factory fenders scrounged from bicycle repair shops, generator and lights, as well as a rear hand brake and standard Sturmey-Archer transmission to replace the hard to service combination three-speed/foot brake.

As I pedaled from Meiners Oaks, the Ojai bedroom community populated by people working in Ojai or Ventura oil fields often times; I'd taken the scenic back route through the famed Ojai Arbolata which meanders amongst some of the nicer local residences just at the periphery of the town of Ojai proper. There is an old wooden bridge near an older small cemetery; I'd been crossing on the bike, when beside me a car slowed to my pace-which is greatly irksome to any cyclist in such narrow confined conditions having a ton of steel, rubber and glass beside one's person threateningly with a potential idiot at the wheel. "What are you so grumpy about!" came a joyous shout from the passenger side window which was rolled down for the purpose not to mention having as great a benefit of the sunny day as possible. Looking up, there was Breezy beside me; having fun, giving me a great surprise I'd last seen during '82 as she was getting herself and the Volvo moved to Hawaii while effectively splitting up our household forcing me to relocate locally as I continued the janitor job quite a while longer.

I followed her in the pale green two-door SAAB 99 sedan with Colorado plates she'd told me was her husband's, to the old cemetery, where she took out of the car a blanket to lay on the ground; with an infant daughter and one two and a half years old, who always amazed me by reminding me of one of those "Daddy Long Legs" spiders she was so articulate, slender and adventurous, exploring anyplace in her vicinity. They had a small nylon camping tent set up in Stephen Jeffrey's back yard, living out of that while visiting Ojai from Maui. Later, on the oldest girl's sixth birthday, I was able to chance to phone from the Von's supermarket on "the Av" in Ventura using a pay phone there, around six or seven one evening; when Breezy picked up their phone, amidst a chaotic children's birthday celebration she and Stephen's girlfriend who accompanied Breezy to Hawaii, were videotaping.

*Several years later, though while I still was living out of the '66 square-back; I met a guitarist/vocalist from Samoa, in Spokane at a warehouse/artist's loft Jessy Chrisman a musician friend had built up as a residence for another friend of his then. This visiting man from Samoa was greatly talented as a musician, singing and playing beautifully for us that day; who I then got into a conversation with, mentioning Jay's amazing escape from the great white shark. He told me that was the only feasible way Jay could've escaped; though also surprising me greatly himself, as we talked. I'd momentarily left his line of sight; so that he'd had to ask me to talk with him only when he was able to watch my lips, who'd been stone deaf for reasons I never was told.