In Memoriam for the Bug

Yesterday my dad sold his 1967 Volkswagen Beetle, which he has had for all 38 of its years. He bought it new for $2,000, and sold it, 38 years used, for $2,000. And to think most cars depreciate in value.

He was pretty torn up about it. The reason he sold it is because he bought a truck, and there was room in neither the driveway nor the bank account to keep all of our cars. But can you imagine? Saying goodbye to something that has seen you through 2/3 of your life? Something that represents your entire youth? I'm sure some of you can, actually, with much more poignant examples than a car. But, so far in my innocent and lucky life, I can't.

In the dimming light of the last night the Bug would spend with us, we took family photos around the car. "You were almost born in this car, you know," my dad said. I did know, but had forgotten (those days of before-birth are but distant memories). On the coldest October night on record in Georgia, they drove in the Bug from Athens to Douglasville, several hours, where there was a hospital that offered midwives instead of doctors. They stopped at regular intervals for my mom to throw up. When I finally did come (I managed to wait for the hospital), the first thing I did was poo in my mom's hand. I came into the world with shit and bile, but also with love. And, as my dad points out, "If it wasn't for this car, you wouldn't be here."

He says that about a lot of things. If it weren't for his choosing my mother over the Most Beautiful Girl in All of France who picked him up while hitchhiking on his last days in Europe before grad school, if it weren't for his choosing not to visit the mainland while he was stationed at Pearl Harbor, on a routine courier flight that exploded over the Pacific, if it weren't for World War II, even, which brought my grandparents together, I wouldn't be here. Is it worth it, I wonder? Am I really so necessary to the world that WWII should have happened to bring about my existence? It's a scary burden to hang on unsure shoulders.

It's much easier just to think about the Bug, and how if it weren't for that, even if we were here we might be in totally different places. My dad, for instance, would have paid a lot more for mufflers over the years, having bought a lifetime-warranty Midas muffler for as long as he owned the car. All of us might have aged faster without that tie to younger, more carefree times. I've only felt sorrier for my dad when his mother died, and when various pets have died over the years. The Bug is far from dead, and will continue to please some other die-hard VW enthusiast, but that's part of what is so sad: to have to say goodbye, move on from something, to cut the cord yourself when what you are letting go is something you could be holding onto. Letting go of something before its time, and ending the era of your youth in doing it.