Frank,
Did you ever own a '66 VW Squareback? I may have bought it from one
of your relatives:
At 10:11 PM -0500 10/29/00, Frank Clarici wrote:
>scott putnam wrote:
> >
> > ok folks, since it's so close to halloween,who wants to share some
> > blood-curdling tales of what they found when they finished stripping their
> > beloved midget
> > _________________________________________________________________________
>
>...
>I'll go back to pop rivets and aluminum flashing for floors now.
--
This puts me of a mind of the first car that I ever bought with just
my money (i.e., no mooching from Mama and Dad). It was a glorious '66
VW Squareback. I bought it in college for $175 from the youngest
child of a very large Catholic family. I believe her parents bought
it new but by the time she got it, it had gone through nine brothers
and sisters. One of the great things about this car was that every
nook and cranny, including the engine compartment, was stuffed with
local maps that stretched from Alaska to Argentina. This woman's
siblings had thrashed this poor car all over the Americas. It was
approaching, as near as her oldest brother and a middle sister could
calculate, 250,000 miles when I bought it. The compression was so low
that I could push start it in the length of a filling station apron
by simply opening the driver's door and peddling with my left foot
like on a kid's scooter. Even my girlfriend (Claudia, who is now my
wife and should've known better from these experiences) could push
start it in heels and evening dress. Of course, she had to do this in
the rain one too many times, precipitating my largest single
expenditure on this car - a Sears Die-Hard battery.
There were many episodes with this car. The one your note reminded me
of was the dreaded rear floorboards. Claudia baby-sat two girls of a
woman I worked with on campus. She had to pick them up from school
everyday and of course, being young and foolish, we saw nothing wrong
with her using the Squareback for this. I had many times cautioned
Claudia to not let the girls stand on the floorboards as they were
lattice-thin from rust. When fetching them at school, Claudia always
dutifully picked each one up and set them on the rear seat and
buckled them in (yes, I had installed seat belts all around). Anyway,
one time on the way home from school, they stopped to do some grocery
shopping and Claudia bought them some snacks. When they got back to
the car, Claudia set them in and put the groceries in the front seat.
She got in and announced "Who wants Pop-Tarts!" whereupon both girls
unstrapped, jumped up from their seats, and promptly fell right
through the floorboards!
Neither was hurt, not even scratched. Claudia said it would have been
funny, what with the girls just standing on the ground but still
being in the car, except they were crying so much. They were
convinced that this was the coolest car in the whole world (it
certainly didn't _smell_ like any other car in the whole world, what
with all those moldy maps strewn about) and they had just broken it.
So between classes I pop riveted in all new shiny floors made from
gutter flashing! Why, even I could stand on them! OK, if I was _real_
careful. Anyway, that made the girls feel better.
The erzats repair lasted through the time that I got rid of that car.
On graduation day, in between fetes and feasts, I rolled it down the
back side of college hill (in Providence, RI) where there was,
believe it or not, a VW repair and restoration shop. I had to _beg_
the owner to take the car off my hands. In fact, I had to pay him
five bucks!
There were many other fun episodes with the car. One shining
attribute it had was that it could just make my roomie's home on the
Cape before dying. He lived at the bottom of a hill near Barnstable
and on two different trips we actually rolled up in his front lawn
with nothing but gravity as the motive force. The little engine had
had just enough poop left to get us to the top of the hill, and then
gave up and so we silently rolled home. But, it always started after
it had cooled down. We also used it as the football express and one
time had 17 people stuffed into it and on it to go to the game (the
old stadium was just off campus, and thankfully downhill. Strangely,
none of them asked for a ride back after the game).
Needless to say, once all my roomies and rugby pals found out that
you really didn't need a key to start it, the little car made many
road trips that after all these years I'm still learning about!
Due to this list, I now know better. I only make repairs the right
way and I make 'em to last. Except for that exhaust manifold. And the
rusty bonnet repaired with nail polish (hey, the colors match,
almost). And the home-made left rear spring. But other than that...
Jeff
_____________________________________________________________
Jeffrey H. Boatright, PhD
Assistant Professor, Emory Eye Center, Atlanta, GA, USA
Senior Editor, Molecular Vision, http://www.molvis.org/molvis
mailto:jboatri@emory.edu
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