Life and the Volkswagen Bug

I was sixteen when I met my first Volkswagen Bug. My father had just left his C-suite job at Ford, and we arrived in St. Maarten where he was building a resort. I had come from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and my Cougar XR7 convertible with air conditioning. It was 1969.

My dad took me outside, and there was a red VW Bug in the driveway. He said, “This is your car for the vacation. It’s a stick shift, and if you want to go anywhere while you are here, you will learn to drive it.” We got in the car, where he spent three minutes (his attention span for any of his daughters at that time), and he left me to it. Considering how much I hurt it learning to use a stick shift, the car was very kind to me on my first foray into independence.

I loved that car. I loved that I felt it was a friend, not just a vehicle. I loved getting in it. I loved its size. I loved backing up in it. I simply loved it. I did get stuck in it when I went to Mullet Bay Beach, and three guys pushed me out of the beach sand I had backed into. Maybe they lifted the car, instead of pushing it; I can’t remember.

When I arrived at the University of Nebraska two years later, with my matching pants and sweater sets, my Student Assistant, in charge of our floor and the young female residents, came in to say hi to the foreign girl from St. Maarten. I was sitting on my bed, looking very New…