In the crowd of people that have had a hand in this adventure, my grandma sits front and center. Without her support I would not have been able to get the bus, and her trust and love for me are a constant blessing. When it comes to how I came to even want a bus, my parents have been integral. My mother rekindled the idea of living in a VW bus earlier this year while I was finishing up my last semester at College of Charleston. She told me that she had seen a bus for sale in Lexington, SC(my parents home), and when she saw it, she thought of me and my many talks about venturing about in a wayfaring way. It was months later that I remembered the conversation I had with my mother about the bus, when that seed germinated. My father's part in all that has happened thus far is far more indirect. One of the first and still one of the clearest images I have of what the future may hold as I begin rambling through the world in this glorious contraption, is a scene from one of my father's favorite movies, Field of Dreams, in which Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones are sliding along a country highway with the Doobie Brother's rock masterpiece "China Grove" playing in the background. I cannot wait to get this bus on the road so that if nothing else my father and I can wind our way beneath a sunlit sky as the Doobie's bring us home.
After graduating college with a degree in Anthropology, I returned to working with Earl, a black and white spotted mut. She is the owner of a renovation company. She lets her owner Joe do the day to day work, sanding and painting, building and crafting. She does all the day to day sunbathing and water-lapping herself. It was a windy afternoon on the Bohicket river, while Joe and I were working tirelessly to repair a 36-foot trimaran that we began gnawing on a yarny question that I had been working on since before I graduated college. "What am I going to do now that I've finished college?". "Pass me that sandpaper", said Joe. "Here...but I mean really I don't know what I am going to do. I can't apply to graduate school, if I even want to, until the winter, and I won't be able to go until next August even if I do apply. I don't even have a car. I rely on you to pick me up every day for work, which is great. I feel really dependent on you. I need to get a car. But I don't have the money for a car. And I don't want to live downtown anymore. It was great while I was in school, but I finished school and I want to move on...."(I went on like this for a while). Eventually I ended up with this statement: "Maybe I should do what my mom said and live in a bus". Joe said, "Yea maybe you should." He actually said much more than that, and we kept bouncing the idea around until it really felt like it was a completely ludicrous notion. Over the next month and a half Joe remained a source of encouragement and ideas concerning the bus. Joe also introduced me to a couple friends of his, some really cool guys who love classic Volkswagens and helped me get my feet on the ground about what I was getting myself into. Derek and Robert gave me much needed pointers on how to look for a bus and how to learn about buses. They even went so far as to look over a prospective bus with me, and they saved me from getting in way over my head with a bus that, though beautiful and in need of a loving owner, would have sunk me in a laundry list of intense repairs. Also, to pass along something Derek told me that I may never have considered otherwise, to my buses detriment, is that buses like my 78 westy run on 93 octane fuel only. Good to know.
It was right around the time that Derek and Robert were giving me pointers and encouragement that I found out that my roommate's dad had been a Volkswagen mechanic. He has also owned two buses of his own, and Ben(roommate) and Bob(Ben's Dad) have been great chums. They drove me up to St. George, SC, where I found the bus that I now own, and looked it over with me. We gave the bus a good look over today and even got the engine to turn over, making my $2000 investment look better and better .
There have been countless other friends who have offered their support, and everyone who has shared or will share this adventure with me is hereby thanked, patted on the back, hugged, high-fived, and smiled upon.
Perhaps next I will post some of my plans for the bus, but of course plans are amorphous spectres at best.
