I'm 54 and drove my first bus when 17.  A friend had purchased a 66
SO-42 camper in Ft. Bragg, CA and needed someone to drive it home to
Santa Rosa because he drove a mail truck there and back six days a
week.  I picked up a woman hitchiking - she must have been 22 or 23 -
and we fell in love on the three hour drive.  I was of course young,
with thick, shoulder-length blond hair and thin (not like now) and oh so
filled with the uncertainty of the times.  She was dressed in
embroidered raw cotton layers - long skirt, peasant blouse, a hand made
duffle.  I dropped her off, both of us knowing it wouldn't work - me in
high school, she staying at one of the communes then prevalent in the
coastal hills. Ahhh, what a memory...

I bought the 66 camper three years later, and kept it until the
mid-80s.  I bought an 82 diesel and installed a westy interior in it
from a wreck, and now have an 85 vanagon no, bus, ready for a subie
engine and custom interior.

Jeffrey Olson
Martin, SD
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