Volkswagen Bus

Nothing is more emblematic of the 1970’s than the Volkswagen bus! I know. We had several Volkswagens, including the proverbial bus. At the time, those of us who came to San Francisco from other places were rolling stones. Everyone was searching, on the move to find information no one else had, out of sight music, the wilder side, land you could own, or maybe, friends and community. The Volkswagen bus made a turtle out of you, your house on your back. You could fill it with your stuff, sleep in it, pick up hitchhikers, even tune it yourself. It was the ultimate backpack for a fluid world.

David and I had thick pieces of foam cut to fit the back of the bus, so we could lay out our sleeping bags in it and be at home anywhere. Taking a hibachi to cook on, we drove up and down the California coast on the weekends, thinking ourselves kings of the road.

No Volkswagen was complete without a set of metric tools and a greasy copy of John Muir’s “How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive.” Drawings carefully demonstrated exactly how to tune the Volkswagen and many other tasks. Not being the mechanical type, I never learned much about the engine, but David (having made friends with a great mechanic named Ernie) did learn to tune ours. He would listen to the purring of the motor, sensitive to all its sounds.

One Christmas we drove the bus down to Baja, hoping for sun and warmth. It was foggy and chill on the Baja beaches, however. And I had to take a plane home to get back to work in time, leaving David to nurse the bus home. The engine on the bus was air-cooled, and a piece of the aluminum foil he had used to try to draw air into the engine got sucked into the pipe. On the way home David drove slowly and stopped often to keep the poor thing from overheating. At least that was the story.

I never had driven much, as I mostly lived in San Francisco and took buses. But when David had a bad car accident and ended up in Crystal Springs Rehabilitation Center in San Mateo, I got my California driver’s license and learned to drive the bus. I liked being up high with not much car in front of you. When David was able, I drove down, picked him up and took him places, reminding him there was life outside.

We had many cars and apartments in the 1970’s. Coming from other parts of the country, we didn’t know how to settle down. There was some philosophy behind our transience, of course. We were trying to see what the basics were, what we did and didn’t need, to live lightly upon the earth. We didn’t collect furniture or anything else. We “borrowed” landscapes and libraries, sat in coffee shops and explored every inch of our city and our world, though we did keep friendships and held down regular jobs. We had acquired the habit of searching and there was always a reason to move.

I didn’t really know I was a rolling stone until I married a native Californian. I’ve now lived in the same place for fifteen years. It puts a different perspective on things to be sure!