My Bug: For Everyone Who Owned, Loved, or Shared a Vw Beetle...True Tales of the Car That Defined a Generation - Tapa dura

The fall of 1968 I turned sixteen, dyed my hair blond, and acquired my first VW Bug. I learned to drive that fall by motoring in circles around my parents' front lawn, which, while a substantial size, did not provide a chance to go beyond second gear. The following February I had my first accident.

My best friend, Nancy, and I did everything together, including having our roots done at the beauty shop. As Nancy was being combed out, they took me from under the heat machine that activated the chemicals applied to my hair. The beautician began to comb, and my hair started falling out in disturbingly large clumps. When she finished, to my horror, there were still some strands of hair that made it to my chin, but most of my hair was less than one inch long! The beautician suggested I wear a wig until my hair grew long enough for a decent haircut. For the next month, me and my blond bouffant became close friends.

Two weeks later on the way home from the supermarket with hamburger and buns for a sloppy joe dinner in hand, I gravely miscalculated a turn. Crossing three lanes of southbound traffic to make a left-hand turn into the northbound lanes during rush hour was a little too ambitious. Halfway across the road I had to stop to avoid hitting another car making a left-hand turn from the main roadway. Unfortunately, a car heading south didn't see me sitting there until it was too late. It struck my right front fender, sending my Bug spinning in a circle. Partway through the spin, the driver's door opened and somehow I managed to fall out onto the roadway. Dazed but seemingly in one piece, I stood up only to witness my Bug jumping over the curb and heading off toward the Drug Fair without me. I began chasing it, yelling, "Somebody please stop my car!"

By now the Bug made a ninety-degree turn and was at least heading parallel to all the parked cars in the Drug Fair lot rather than straight for them. To my enormous relief, it then made another ninety-degree turn and abruptly stopped at the curb.

A U.S. Parks policeman got to me first. I was standing next to my now stationary Bug when he came up, saying he would call an ambulance immediately. I saidthat wasn't necessary, I was a little shaky but all right. He looked at me quizzically and said, as if not to upset me any further, that I had blood pouring down my forehead. I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw that somehow, even though the Safeway bag was still in the car, hamburger juice had spattered all over me. Just as I turned around to reassure the policeman that it was hamburger juice not blood, the policeman reached over to check my nonexistent wound, knocking my wig askew and causing a gasp from the gathering crowd that was sure I had been scalped.

--Shirley Gromen