Last week was not a good week as my laptop took a dive and with it went a lot of my recent pictures and scans. Now I need to reorganize and figure out what I had ready to post. As often as I back everything up, I guess it was not often enough!!
I did, however, dig this picture up when visiting my parents over the holidays and finally found time to run it through the scanner. This photo shows my father sitting behind the red 71 long before I got my hands on it. The date was 1986, perhaps a year before the engine blew. You can see it still has shiny paint and a nice white top (both long tarnished by the time I rebuilt it). My father is reading the Bentley manual in the most appropriate spot, right next to the bus. I love this shot because it shows my father in the same place, reading the same (literally) book as I did at a much later date.
When my wife and I decided to hunt for a bus back in 2010, one of the reasons pushing us was the children. We imagined the future adventures we could experience with our family; everything from weekend drives and camping trips to multi-week get-a-ways. Even the idea of a cross-country trip was thrown around! Being able to build such great memories for our children as they grew up with such a great auto was front and center in our decision. For me especially, since I grew up in a VW family, these ideas rang true in my own memories and the idea that perhaps one or both kids would someday replace me as chief mechanic was a capstone to my vision of the future (no pressure kids, honest 😉 )
Of course, as of this post, that has not happened because they are 6 and 3. But their enthusiasm for Moby and, in turn, anything VW has astounded me! My daughter still will not relinquish control of our first place trophy and has taken to the lego bus with a stubborn determination to complete the entire project like it was the vehicle in our garage. Both she and my son constantly run around with little VW cars (mostly buses) and love clothes imprinted with anything VW. My son, the 3 year old, loves to point out all the VW emblems he sees as we drive down the road or walk in the garage.
The idea behind this post, including the picture, came to me last Friday as I drove my son home after running a few errands. We passed a VW dealership, one I have passed too many times to notice anymore, and he just about had a fit. He absolutely could not get over the humongous VW sign and just yelled at the top of his lungs, “Look Papa, a VW, just like yours. It is so big!! Look, Look!!! Do you see it?” He made his Papa proud.
We may have envisioned having good times, building wonderful memories, and getting the children involved with our bus but we did not realize how fast and in how many ways that would take place. In many ways it makes me beam proudly and encourage their help and participation but I cannot help but think, on occasion, “oh no! What have I done?”! Sorry kids, it is in your blood now, the baton is heading your way….
Zero to Sixty . . .Eventually 
What a fantastic picture!! He didn’t know he was being photographed, did he? I love how you can see his hand splayed to hold the book open and possibly pointing at the paragraph he’s reading. I’m also freaked out that he’s probably younger than I am now in that picture.
We’re speculating what that white cylindrical object is in the engine compartment. 🙂 At first I thought it was a beer, but I think it’s actually too big for that.
I laughed out loud at the story about the VW sign. I don’t usually pay attention, but if you stop and look they really are amazingly huge.
You are right, a beer it is! Schmidt beer I think. I’d prefer not to think about his age in that picture either 🙂 I should have known these kids would have a soft spot for VWs after they wore the VW onesies you made!!