I should once again remind you that there is an e-mail address
for you to ask Larry questions about his writings, especially about
his latest book, The Ragtime Kid. Chick
here to find the page with that
e-mail address and also to see if the questions that you may have
already sent in have been answered yet.
Back to the matter at hand, before the coffee gets cold.
This time, Larry shares a little information about a (somewhat)
trustworthy travel companion.
"One of our family's peculiarities is that we
name our cars. I don't know why; we always have. When Myra and I got married,
we had a 1952 Chevy, who immediately became known as Elizabeth, long for (Tin)
Lizzie. Then came a bubble-top VW camper-bus, which had the odd habit of
blowing his horn whenever the driver made a left turn. We soon found out this
was because the key ring, hanging down from the ignition, touched the steering
column when we hung a left, and shorted out a wire.
A bit of electrical tape solved that, but by then, the vehicle was already
Horatio. Horatio was succeeded by a fire engine-colored pop-top camper-bus, Red
Ryder, and for a while, there was Sherman, one of those Checkers they used to
build like tanks. Now, there's Minnie, the Ford Windstar...and as there has
been through the years, as cars came and went, there's still a blue '66 VW with
a sunroof. The Bug.
We bought The Bug second-hand when we moved to Seattle in 1970, and what
with his great gas mileage and ability to squeeze into parking spaces no car had
a right to, it established itself as the go-around-in-the-city car, open-roofed
for roughly half the year. The Bug came along for our year and a half in Los
Angeles in 1976-77, then came back home with us to Seattle, if not entirely
under his own power. As Myra and I tooled northward on I5, just outside Mt.
Shasta City, there was a terrible bang, and The Bug spluttered to a 15 mph
crawl. We coaxed it into the city, where a mechanic told us, yes, The Bug had
thrown a rod, and yes, he could replace the engine, but it would take a week for
him to get the parts. In the end, he took me to the local U-Haul Facility, I
rented a truck, drove it to a loading dock nearby; then, the mechanic and
several friends pushed The Bug over, onto the dock, and into the truck. Next
day, we drove the rest of the way to Seattle, went straight to the German car
repair shop, and pushed The Bug off, onto a ramp, and into the service bay,
where he got his new engine.
Years passed. We worked with a mechanic whose approach was, "Make it
run." The Bug slowly declined into senescence. Most of the time we could get
him started; he wheezed and spluttered when he ran; his electrical systems
worked erratically at best. The seat covers deteriorated, seat springs played
havoc with the driver's hiney, there was more horsehair in the atmosphere within
the car than in the seats...and the sunroof stuck closed. Finally, it became
clear: fix him right or junk him.
The mechanic at the VW-Only Shop turned pale at the sight of The Bug,
but as he began to calculate the repair bill, his color quickly returned. For
the price of a darned good music box, The Bug now chugs happily around Seattle
again, doing parking-lot owners out of multiple pounds of flesh. With his brand
new seats and reupholstery, all done to original specifications, we ride in
comfort, opening the sunroof whenever we please, regularly getting big grins and
thumbs-up from other motorists and pedestrians.
The Bug's fenders are still dented, his paint faded, and people keep
asking me why I don't have the exterior restored. I tell them that aside from
the cost, I figure there's a lesson there: as we get older, we need to do all we
can to keep running properly and be comfortable inside. And if we don't look so
great on the outside any more, well, I guess that ain't really so important, is
it?"--Larry
Karp
