Still Crazy After All These Years: Volkswagen Beetle

I was watching NBA All Star a few weeks back. In the slam dunk contest, between dunks when there's not much happening, the camera would show celebrities who were present at the arena. As the camera panned around, for a second I thought I saw someone but couldn't tell for sure. After a few minutes his face reappeared on the screen and this time the commentator verified his identity, Paul Simon was in the building!

I remember way back in the day when I was 6 years old, my dad used to play Paul Simon songs with his guitar and I loved to sit around and listen to him sing. There was his collection of Simon & Garfunkel tapes, along with Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary neatly arranged on a waist high piece of shelf he made himself out of plywood. And even though he would play and sing a lot of different songs, those few that stuck in my mind were of Paul Simon.

Volkswagen Beetle, just like the one we had

Back in those days we lived in a small apartment on the eleventh floor of a complex building in the big city and we had a Volkswagen Beetle. It was white, sounded like a grumpy old tank and had red leather worn-out seats. The coolest thing about it was that the engine was located in the trunk, and the trunk was actually under the hood. And boy, did that impress my friends! I was the only kid on the block whose dad owned a rear-engine car.

Adding to my popularity was the rumor that my dad would actually let me drive the car occasionally. This rumor (which I'm sure you can guess where it came from), got around for some time and became more solid, with new details being added every day. Within a few weeks it was a known fact that I would drive my dad's car any time I liked and I could drive it in such high speeds that it was even faster than the cops.
 

 The Beetle had a 1.3 L four cylinder engine in the rear

They say If you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes the truth. And of course the wild imagination of a 7 year old needs little repeating. One weekend my dad was out of town on business, my mom busy talking on the phone and my little sister playing in her room. It was my golden opportunity. I knew my dad kept the car keys in the top drawer of his work desk, and so I picked the keys, told my mom I was going out to play football and off I went.

By then I knew how to start the car and how to shift gears (my dad had showed me once with the car running idle in the parking lot). I got in, closed the door, turned the key and it started, already it was a triumph. I turned on the cassette player, Simon and Garfunkel were singing Mrs. Robinson.

Although it was called a sedan, it had only two doors

I had to sit on the very edge of the seat to reach the pedals and so I pressed the clutch with my left foot as far as I could (which wasn't far enough) and engaged reverse, the gearbox made a loud angry sound but accepted the shift, I started to back up slowly. everything was going good and my confidence was building up, I turned the wheel and the car gently came out of its parking space, I couldn't turn to look back so I just hoped there was nothing in my way.

I heard a thud from the back and the car shook ever so slightly, it wasn't too loud or too hard so I thought nothing of it. It was time to get out of the parking lot and into the street. I pressed the clutch and shifted into 1st gear, slowly pushed down the gas, expecting the car to start moving forward but nothing happened, car was standing still. I pressed on the gas once more, engine got louder, yet the car wasn't moving.

Then I realized something was wrong and my heart started pounding, I didn't know what to do. I pulled the handbrake and got out to inspect the surroundings, I looked at the back and there it was, the rear bumper was stuck behind a tree, how did that happen I had no idea, the car was stuck, I couldn't back up, I couldn't go forward, and I had to do something quick because sooner or later one of the neighbors would see me and that would be disasterous.

I have no idea how I got those rear bumpers stuck behind a tree

I was scared and on the verge of tears, you see, even though I knew my dad would never beat me. I knew he would get very very very angry and he was known to yell so loud it was heard six blocks away and he would punch walls and break stuff, no one could stop him when he was mad, not even my mom.

After five minutes of standing still fighting back tears I decided the only thing I could do was to press the gas all the way down and break away from the tree, the worst case was that the rear bumper would detach completely but maybe I could screw it in place so that no one would know. So I got in the car, engaged first gear and floored the gas. It must have taken only one or two seconds, but it felt like a long time, as the car vibrated violently trying to break free, the engine was roaring and smell of burned tire filled the air.

Finally, the car jerked forward and broke away, I braked hard, turned off the engine and jumped out to see what had happened. Rear bumper was still attached to the body but it was crooked. And I had no idea how to fix it. The only way for me was to put the car back exactly where it'd been and pretend nothing's ever happened. So I did.

And all this time, Paul Simon was playing his music.

The trunk was located under the hood!

My dad came back and saw the car, he asked about the bumper, I shrugged innocently and said I had no idea. He got a bit upset but that was it. Years later when I confessed what had happened that day, he told me he knew all along. A few months later in the summer I asked him to teach me how to drive and he did. He would drive to a deserted road out of city, let me take the wheel in the driver seat and we would just drive around at cruising speed as I happily changed as many gears as I could. I was on top of the world.

When I think back about that summer and my driving adventures, there's always one image that dominates everything else. It's me and my dad in our white Volkswagen Beetle, windows all the way down, warm wind blowing our hair as we drive down a country road with Paul Simon singing his songs. I couldn't figure out the meaning of those songs then, they talked about lamp posts, troubled water and sound of silence, but I knew I liked them.

Eventually my dad sold the beetle and bought another car, and another car after that. Yet the white Beetle remains my childhood car. The first car I ever drove and the first car I ever crashed.

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