My Bug

My father was in first grade when my Bug rolled off an assembly line i West Germany thirty years ago. I have no idea what it original color was, but it has gone from gray to rust to black to cream to rust during mt time. My \\\\\\\'69 VW is not just a car but a family artifact.

my grandfather bought it in May 1969 as a second car for his wife. She drove it along the Jersey shore selling real estate for six years. The car followed the family West to San Francisco in 1975. My uncle then got the car and drove it ot college in New Mexico. After graduating and getting a new car, he gave it to my Dad who was just learning how to drive. By now the

car bore the

tattoos of college bumper stickers, bent fenders, and rusted chrome. My Dad had the car painted a light cream and invested in a new transmission. During a ski trip his freshmen year, the Bug skidded off an icy mountain road in Colorado and rolled over. He had the dents pounded out and the car painted gray. It took my parents on their honeymoon. Two years later the

battered Bug carried me home from the hospital. After my parents bought a van, the Bug was relegated to being a backup vehicle. When my Mom got a new car, the Bug was retired to the garage.

Now it is mine. The fenders, though repainted, still bear the

shallow depressions from the Colorado rollover. the windshield is pitted from stones that flew off a speeding gravel truck that nearly ran me off the road in Elko, Nevada, last year. The door handles are replacements I found on E-bay. The car seats are patched with tape. Rust holes in the

floor have been covered with cookie sheets. The dashboard sports the

compass my mother glued on ten years ago so she would not getlost taking me to socces games. The glove compartment is jammed with rumpled maps and snapshots from decades of family vacations and