I can't decide if that's an interesting story or too much information.

Cya,
Robert

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeffrey Olson" <jjolson@GWTC.NET>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 6:53 PM
Subject: The hah hah of good living...

> Hi Malcolm,
> This is just me bud, but I'd rather be a campin than a buildin ? (also,
> would rather not re-invent the wheel...) BTDT, & now, the darn t-shirt
> shrunk !!!???!!!  :o)
>
> Regardless of this fellow's kind and weird answer - campin rather than
> buildin - which it is to someone who loves to work with wood/composites
> -  there is another ethos -  build your interior.  (I love the guy's
> attitude though...!!!  I have to take a drug test to maintain
> employment...)
>
> The Westy grey walled stuff is really lowest common denominator when it
> comes to defining how you want to move through space inside your camper.
>
> I owned a 66 SO-42 westy camper for  years and years, and now that I'm
> putting my subie engine in the vanagon, will spend a number of months
> crafting the interior.  I want the bed/seat frame.  But I think I may
> just build my own interior for the pure, rapacious joy that creating
> something engenders...
>
> Recreating the wheel?  If that's what I do and know where every bolt and
> screw, every mistake and unique attibute is - then the time I spend is
> well-worth it.
>
> I'm going to spend $6000 on an engine and installation, and $1400 for
> the vehicle itself.  I know what I want - and,  what I want is in large
> measure, a product of making love in the 66 westy...
>
> I remember being parked in a rest area of I-84 in 1974 when the freeway
> was brand new.  My girlfriend was totally weirded out about going to
> Hampshire College and having me around.  She was the archetypal upper
> middle class beautiful blonde woman who was 19 years old and very, very
> neurotic.
>
> One of the ways she showed that she really "did" appreciate me was being
> willing to make love whenever I wanted.  I never felt she initiated
> getting naked, but she was "always" willing to look me in the eye and
> follow the direction my hands were moving...
>
> I'd driven from Alabama to Virginia in one long day - 1000 miles, and
> was seeing stick figures running in front of the bus as I drove my 60
> MPH.  The stick figures looked backwards and gestured me to move
> forward.  There I was, in the middle of the night, with five or six
> little stick persons leading me one.  What was I to do???
>
> The upper layer to this was that two days before we'd driven through
> Albuquerque.  My 66 bus had a 1300 in it.  The interstate out of
> Albuquerque is uphill.  The wind that night was blowing 40 mph plus.  I
> was driving in second gear at 30 mph - on the freeway...
>
> Annie had prepared the back of the bus and taken off all her clothes.  I
> could look in the rear view mirror and all I saw was her naked body
> diffused under the weak domelite.  She presented herself in about as
> many positions as I could ever imagine.  I continued to drive - nowhere
> to stop.
>
> Needless to say, I loved every moment of her getting loose.  But I
> couldn't find a place to stop.  NO rest area, no side road, no place for
> us to reaffirm being-in-the-present, meaning there was no future.  For
> the 15 minutes she did her rapacious act I was a danger on the freeway.
> I only monitored being in the lane.  My eyes and heart and surging,
> testosterone driven lust overwhelmed being safe.
>
> 30 years later I marvel at my decision to continue driving.  Annie went
> to sleep and I continued to drive.  I drove to somewhere in Alabama,
> pulled over, crawled back to the bed, and passed out.  Annie was out,
> and so was I.
>
> The next day was filled with sexual tension and we stopped at a couple
> rest areas to relieve ourselves.  The one I remember involved moving all
> the luggage onto the floor and into the front seats and putting down the
> bed.
>
> My 66 had curtains on springs that hid what was happening inside from
> outside view.  I think I like this memory because I was 21 and Annie was
> 19, and we were on a voyage of discovery.  Annie eventually freaked out
> and I had to leave, but until the day before we got to Amherst, she was
> present and using her anxiety to be really, really present.
>
> This anxiety made making love a couple orders out of the ordinary.  We
> parked at one of the rest areas and lustily moved the stuff on the rear
> bed to the front of the bus.  We grabbed at each other and spent
> precious minutes kissing and holding each other, our breathing slowing
> growing louder and shorter.
>
> Towards the end of making love we heard a small, piping voice that
> couldn't have been more than ten feet from the bus say to her mom, "Why
> is that car jumping up and down?"  This is while we were making the bus
> jump up and down.
>
> We smuggled our laughter and slowed our rhythm so as to hide what we
> were doing, knowing full-well the child's mom was envious of us...
>
> So why do I want to put a subie engine in the vanagon and build an
> interior based on my expectations/vision?  Why does the fellow's quote
> above seem slightly absurd?
>
> Owning a vanagon is nothing.  Investing meaning in owning a vanagon is
> very much something.  I got an e-mail earlier today from a fellow who
> thought, based on my question, I wasn't competent to do a Subie
> conversion.
>
> He doesn't understand, or his comment doesn't reflect understanding.
> Why does anyone own a vanagon/westy/synchro???
>
> It's not rational.  I don't think a person can make an argument that is
> rational unless s/he is moving to bio-diesel propulsion.  I am lusting
> to spend the hours necessary to wind my way through a complex mechanical
> process.  I have no doubt that I will be successful, and drive my 165
> horsepower subie driven vanagon to the west coast to find a westy bed
> and rear cabinet...  I will craft an icebox that sits behind the
> passengers seat, and I don't care if someone else thinks I'm stupid or
> obsessed.  I am...
>
> I think young men easily dismiss - a judgment, yes...  They don't
> realize that craftmanship is pretty much all there is outside of the
> love of a good woman...
>
> Jeff Olson
> Martin, SD