"he was de-canonized a while back. so all those old medals on the dashboards are kinda ...
well ... fake? now"

Not at all.� I have a clip-on Mr. Christopher medal that used to grace the visor of our '57 Ford (he was still a saint in those days).� No more fake than a Franklin Mint memorial casting of some sort.� Author Tom Robbins had a memorable line about him and his demotion:� "..patron saint of cruise ship Casanovas, astronauts and six-day bicycle racers."

Lots of things are being demoted/downsized/de-canonized these days.� We bought our Westy during the week that Pluto was in the news for being de-planeted and Pluto was one of the names in consideration due to its timeliness.

Stephen

--- On Sat, 5/23/09, joel walker <uncajoel@BELLSOUTH.NET> wrote:

From: joel walker <uncajoel@BELLSOUTH.NET>
Subject: Re: vanagon in Angels & Demons spoiler within.
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Date: Saturday, May 23, 2009, 11:58 PM

> bob .... is there a Memorial Day for Expired Vanagon's?

well ... there is the old no-longer-celebrated-in-some-places Feast
Day of Saint Christopher, patron saint of travelers ... July 25th
everywhere except Greece (where it is held on March 9th).
oh, and he's also no longer a true saint .. he was de-canonized a
while back. so all those old medals on the dashboards are kinda ...
well ... fake? now. :(

or maybe we should just start one ... since the new model year always
seemed to start in August, we could place der Tag des Bulli (the day
of the Bus/Transporter/Vanagon) on August 1st every year. to celebrate
the passing of the old model year and the start of the new model year,
and to remember all the gefallen Kameraden (dead friends) or
wirkungslos Wagen (no-longer-working vehicles) over the years.

unca joel