It really is not so hard.Do we enjoy it? if the answer is yes,we continue.If
it is no,the quest continues.I enjoy messing with ACVW(old cars in general)
and I will until I decide it's not fun anymore.
"Mike C." > wrote in message
k.net...
> If you don't own a thirty year old plus automobile it's sort of hard
> understanding how much a pain in the ass it is to keep it running,
> especially if you're not a rich dude who can plunk down money to get an
> old car restored like it ain't no thing. I bought my car ten years ago
> about and put a new engine and transmission in it and thought that once I
> was a rich and succesful professional I'd just finish it and be done with
> it and then rub it lovingly with a soft cloth diaper. Well, my financial
> aspirations haven't quite worked out as I hope, and that's partially a
> fault of the cosmos and partially my own fault. Unfortunately it has an
> effect on my vehicle restoration goals, which haven't worked out quite as
> I hoped. My bug, while seemingly mechincally OK (I have to take it in soon
> to get it looked at before the winter and change all my window seals and
> replace the muffler), still looks like an old POS, which isn't fair to the
> car. I'm sure, like any other lady in her thirties, she'd appreciate a
> little nip and tuck where ever it's possible so I really have to get on
> the ball with that. Basically, this all leads me to the point I was going
> to make about my car, which is the pressure I get from lots of peope, most
> in my own family, to just get rid of the car since it's a financial and
> emotional drain.
>
> This brings me back to the main point I was going to make. I don't want to
> get rid of my car because, a) it's a piece of history now. As you can
> probably guess from the way I dress, talk, feel, and mostly live, I sort
> of have a neo-hippy attitude at life (ok...not always and especially not
> lately since my karmic energies have been on the seriously negative side)
> and this car gives me a physical and emotional connection to the original
> hippsters that populated our world many many moons ago. The baby-boomers
> that danced naked in a mud-pit at woodstock, now currently voting
> republican because their tax rates are low. I don't want to call them sell
> outs, since it's easy to sell out when you have privat school they have to
> pay for their kids and stuff like that. I can at least voice my
> disappointment however. Anywho, it's sort of like, when I listen to the
> classic rock station and a particular song comes on the radio, I can sort
> of feel like my car is saying, "yeah..I remember when this song was first
> on the radio, and we were driving to an anti-nuke rally with Moonbeam and
> Rainbow with some hash hidden in an old guitar on the back seat...". I'm
> sort of an anachronistic throw-back to that time and while clubs like the
> SCA like to re-create the Renaissance, no one is out there recreating the
> late 60's and the 70's. Well, maybe Ben and Jerry but that isn't enough.
>
> The second reason, is because my car makes people happy. It just does.
> Last night was another example. I was hanging with some friends and near
> totally out of gas I stopped at a station to fill up (now costing me $15
> to fill up my 8 gallon tank...it never cost me $15 dollars) and this dude
> in front of me just came up and told me I just totally made his day
> because when he was younger he bought a car that looked just like mine as
> his first car, and we got to talking and stuff like that. I get that a
> lot. I get all kinds of stuff like that...people telling me about a beetle
> they owned or their parents or their favorite aunty or something and how
> it ties into one of their favorite memories. I totally dig how it brings
> people happy memories. And no one ever plays Punch Buick...no one
> does...it's Punch Buggy...and it's becoming hard since there aren't that
> many left around. Punch Buggy may potentially die off as a cultural icon
> if I don't help to preserve it...how much of a bummer would that be?
>
> Anywho, I figured that since I was up so early on a Sunday morning and
> since there wasn't much else to do I'd post this little story. Keep on
> truckin' and have a good day. Peace
>
>
>