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Okay, so laugh at me for taking this photo above. Go ahead! I give you my blessing to snicker, giggle, or just laugh aloud.
Today, I saw this VW above, live and in person, parked right THERE on the side of the road by our piano teacher's home during lessons today. I'm sure the neighbors wondered about me, the crazy woman hanging around (waiting for my children) with her camera in hand suddenly snapping a few pics of "someone else's car"!
Whoosh! My mind raced. I felt a little gust of wind so fierce, it almost swung my head round so fast, magnetizing in a way to get my attention, to look THAT way (wink)...for I knew, oh golly - I knew (!) what it was like to ride around in one of these great classic vehicles.
Life as I know it with my husband today began during my teens when he was the cool guy riding around in a neon yellow beetle bug, and I was in the passenger seat, or eventually I was forced to sit at the wheel!
Oh it had to be bright neon yellow of course, heck it matched my snow skiis at the time, and they were cool too. It also had many bells and whistles on it to be sure, but especially one of those VERY noisy retractors on the back end so when we became more serious, my father would become slightly irritated announcing to the family – “He’s almost here, I heard him round the street corner,” which was a block away!
It holds much affection for me in other ways of course to think about the beetles in our lives. Afterall, the yellow neon beetle was the very car which I learned to drive on, a stick shift yet and my husband was my driving instructor because he could be, he was older than I. To him I was overdue to drive, a whole seventeen years old, so he began to teach me, but I confess that my father before him had all but given up on me. You see, early one Saturday morning, my father thought he was doing his diligent duty by taking me for a spin, and allowing me to drive, trying to teach me to use a stick shift within his own little four door yellow (!) Fiat. Remember those cars? We had the greatest Michelin tires that saved us from falling over a cliff one day after snow skiing up a local mountain, but then, that's another story for another day, right dad?
Anyway, back to this story on driving... my father should have known better than to keep the lesson rolling when I first stepped on the brake at a stop sign not too far from our home, on a slight hill and the vehicle began to roll backwards. Unable to get myself up that little slope again, my father came close to having a panic attack when another vehicle soon pulled up behind me, at least for a few isolated moments until all was well again. Bravely we proceeded on our drive together until he decided to have me practice my parallel parking in an older part of town. I was concentrating so hard on his step-by-step instructions, I'm not too sure what happened, but somehow the back wheel of the vehicle hopped over the small rise on the sidewalk and I never felt it. I was very close to driving straight into the large picture window of the store shop nearby a mere few inches from the back tire. The store was closed. Lucky for them! Lucky for me! We headed home. I think my dad recovered eventually, but this would be why he happily approved of my husband (then boyfriend) becoming my new instructor, using HIS car, rather than my father's.
Our first very cool, ever so sweet
VW beetle bug on our wedding day.
It had been hidden, by these two
brothers ,who did this to it!
Wasn't my husband a real cutie?
You can't see me through the balloons, sorry.
Anyway, the same NEON yellow VW beetle bug was the very same car I became a bride in, driving off into the sunset on our wedding night shown in the photos above.
I brought home our first baby in that car and braved a drive-in movie with her during the all new premier of a popular movie of the time; Star Wars. My husband was a motivating factor when he tempted me with our little date night, thinking to bring baby along to sleep in the back seat during the movie. My husband watched the movie. My baby screamed the entire time. I sat in the back seat with her, unable to see the screen, waiting for my husband to peel his eyes off the screen and take us home. Never again!
A VW beetle is the only vehicle one can boast over owning, capable of filling the gas tank for a whole five dollars at the time, and it would last us all week long! True!
This was our third beetle, loved it
as it was a second vehicle for our family.
A VW beetle was not only good on gas, it was dependable in all weather conditions and it drove especially great in the snow. My husband thoroughly enjoyed driving in the middle of empty parking lots at night to circle about, doing doughnuts in that same snow for sport. True! Crazy but true! Oh to be young and stupid! *wink* No one else was with him, but he told stories of those times to me with that crazy smile on his face the whole time.
A VW beetle was the most interesting thing, for it felt so very roomy inside and the trunk was at the front of the car, the engine at the back. When in Mexico one year, my husband rented a white VW beetle to drive our sons somewhere together. Both wondered why they once seemed so big to them years before...but then they were so much smaller.
Our "Mexican Beetle Bug" Rental
For all these reasons and more, we owned many over the years, mainly my husband did as the family grew because they were great on gas to get back and forth to work.
We loved our beetles, so pardon me as I recount the memories of those sweet little babies, all three of them! (I don't have a photo of our navy blue one...gasp!)
Memories! They follow us everywhere don't they?
Maybe I'll buy another one when I retire and get one of those cutesy silk gerbera daisy bouquets to sit on the console. Groovy baby!
