Dave Mancuso dot Com

[This is a continuation of the true story of my ’76 VW Camper’s fire and resulting odyssey.]

Within a few minutes, Denise and I had hitchhiked to the next I-95 exit in South Carolina, leaving the Campmobile behind. We then began to hike our way along a long country road with few houses in sight. In fact, the only houses we could see were some small trailer homes dotted along the next half mile of the road. We decided to ask to use the phone (we did have our AAA card, at least, so emergency service was a possibility). This was before cell phones of course (I didn’t even have my first car phone until several years later). The first house was no help. They didn’t have a phone. They were serious–nada. So we tried the next house. They didn’t have a phone either. The third house was also sans phones, but they did say that the people 3 houses down were the ones in the neighborhood who had a phone. To say that we were in a remote location would be kind. To say we were in hell would be not far from the truth.

So we trekked down (and over, and up) to the “lucky phone house” and asked to use the phone. The phone was on top of a tiny phone book, thin, about 5 inches by 8 inches. I’d never seen one like that (although I’ve seen them since). We called AAA, and got a ride back down to the exit. The AAA guy eventually picked us up and we rode back to the van. Once he’d hitched up the van, we started heading up to the next exit again, over the bridge and back on to I-95 south–back into Georgia. You see, the only VW dealership was sixty miles back down I-95 in Savannah. Oh, joy.

So we rode in the AAA truck back into Georgia, back into Savannah, where we (and the van) were dropped off at the local VW dealership. The dealership checked in the van and put it in the shop. From then on it was Wait City. Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

More waiting.

And this was the first five minutes.

Realistically speaking, We had burned the engine in the morning, and it was only one o’clock or so in the afternoon. It hadn’t been that long (yet), but time stretched agonizingly. From time to time, I walked outside and explored the lot. In the back, they had an old VW Thing (you know, the original SUV–a jeeplike creature). Is this my worst case scenario, I wondered? Will I have to resurrect this shaky looking contraption and muscle it to Pennsylvania? I refused to consider the possibility.

At four o’clock I’d had enough. I went up to the service counter and asked for someone who could tell me what was going on with my van. I knew they’d seen it, so what was the holdup?

The service manager came out with the mechanic. They looked surprised that I was asking about the van. I restrained my urge to scream (I’m a levelheaded person, but this situation made me white-lipped).

“What’s the deal? Tell me now–I need to know my next step here,” I said.

The service manager spouted some nasty terms about fire damage and my van, and more fire damage, and more about my van, and then said the words that rocked me: “Have you called your insurance company, Mr. Mancuso?”

OK–education time here. My van was worth maybe $1,500 to $2,000, so I had absolutely no collision and (more importantly) no comprehensive insurance on it. Just good old liability coverage. What would the insurance company do for me? Mail me a courtesy tissue so that I could cry into it?

I explained this to the service manager in sentences that, while agitated, were (to me) carefully measured out and controlled. I accidentally set my now desperate vision and mission in one last statement: “You can’t tell me that this van is a total loss! There must be a way to get it running again!”

I had one crazy gamble to make. If the damage was as superficial as I thought, it was limited to the fuel system. If so, all I had to do was find a 1976 VW Transporter Campmobile replacement fuel system within the hour and within walking distance of the dealership. Easy, right? Sure.

Yes, you’re right. The easy solution would have been the dealership themselves. Unfortunately, that would have been too easy. They had nothing in stock (and nothing in my price range anyway). Go figure. I turned to Denise. She didn’t even need to ask “What now?” We started the quest to find our replacement 1976 VW Transporter Campmobile fuel system at 4:30pm on January 2, 1990.

Wow. On the season finale of West Wing, they just made the acting President of our country John Goodman.

Stunning.

State College was…interesting. For those of you who are unaware by the way, State College (zip code 16801) is the name of the town where Penn State is located. Kind of. Actually, at some point the campus itself gained its own zip code (16802) and the town name “University Park, PA.”

At any rate, both State College and University Park have changed a lot in the last ten years or so. It’s becoming a vastly different place from my home there in the late ’80s. I lived north of town, where little existed. Now it’s a city, with Best Buys, and huge malls, and monstrous condo complexes.

Campus isn’t much better. They’re constructing buildings on top of buildings. They’re even making buildings that stretch across roads–apparently they’ve run out of actual land to build on.

Oh well–it was still a nice place to visit. Walking downtown was somewhat nostalgic; it hasn’t changed at all, really. And Pattee (excuse me, the Pattee and Paterno) library was truly amazing. I could have spent hours in there.

But my car with flashers in the fifteen minute loading zone would likely have been towed away. Parking at least in State College hasn’t changed a bit.

I’m off to State College, PA for the next couple of days, so weblog posting may be infrequent. I’ll continue to post to the local weblog on my machine, and hopefully everything will catch up by Wednesday this week (continuing the saga of the crispy-fried Campmobile).

[Foreword: This is a story that for an unknown reason I want to tell in five acts, like the old Streets of San Francisco TV show (and Shakespearean plays too, although its literary merit is highly questionable)].

This is a true story. It happened over Christmas vacation in 1989.

Act I: Is It Against The Law to Yell “Fire!” In a Crowded Campmobile?

In retrospect, I should have known disaster was imminent. I knew the flaws in German engines, and I’d even warned others of the problem that I was about to face. As is my way, I managed to bring things to a head at the worst possible moment.

It was Christmas vacation in 1989. I’d bought a used VW Campmobile three months before, and I’d been fixing it up. It was an awesome vehicle. It had a stove, a sink, a clothes closet, and a poptop roof with an “upstairs” bunk to sleep in. It was a ’76, the second year with fuel injection (with which I became intimately familiar with–keep reading). I’d decided it would be a great idea to drive down from Pennsylvania down to Florida with my wife Denise (although to be exact, Denise was my fiance then–I had just asked her to marry me the month before). We’d decided to vist my parents in Sarasota. We left on Christmas Day (which is another story–that was the year that I learned not to defrost a Christmas turkey at room temperature in the summer house. They decompose rather quickly). The vacation was great, and I’d managed to do some work to get the Westy Campmobile looking really nice (as nice as an orange ’76 VW Westy can look, at any rate). The vacation passed without incident, and on the first day of the new year, we started back toward PA. We made good time on the highways, and that night we stayed at a campground in Georgia by the ocean.

The next morning on January 2nd, we got back on I-95 and started north. Denise was driving, and I was reading a Calvin and Hobbes book as we motored through Georgia.

At 10:00 or so, we passed into South Carolina still on I-95. If you’ve ever heard a ’72-’79 VW Bus engine, you know the thrum it makes when everything is well. My Westy was making that thrum.

At 10:30 AM, something changed. It was strange–I sensed it before I consciously recognized it. It seemed to happen in slow motion. As my Spidey sense went off, I turned my head to look at the rear of the bus. There, under the rear bench seat, I saw a heating vent. Out of the vent, Mission Impossible style, I saw wafts of smoke wave out into the cabin.

I said to Denise (I recall the exact terror-stricken words) “PULLOVERPULLOVERPULLOVER!!!” As she came to a halt on the shoulder of the road, I grabbed from the glove compartment a small fire extinguisher I’d hoped never to use. In a mixture of panic and purpose, I jumped out of the van and ran to the back hatch. I opened the hatch (in retrospect, a very stupid move–what if the fresh oxygen had caused an explosion?). Looking in, I saw orange flames on the engine, licking the ceiling of the compartment. Plastic and rubber parts were stretching like taffy in the heat. Everything was on fire.

I let loose the fire extinguisher, spraying it all over the engine. The fire went out, leaving a smoldering ruin. Denise came back and I showed her the damage. German fuel line rubber was notorious for cracking when aging in air-cooled Volkswagens, and then spraying gasoline all over old VW engines. We’d just witnessed a prime example at fifty-five miles per hour.

Denise asked the critical question. “What now?”

The engine wouldn’t start again. The van was dead. We were stranded. We gathered some things and locked the van up. On I-95, forty miles into South Carolina, we started hitch-hiking to the next exit.

There’s a great article on the new iTunes music store application by the Associated Press. This will be out for Windows users by the end of the year, so just wait.

From the article: “That Apple’s store sold a million tracks in the week following its April 28 launch apparently shocked record executives, who said they would have been satisfied with a million in a month.”

I’m four songs (and four dollars) of that million. Count me in. 99 cents per song or $9.99 per album fits me fine.

I made some spaghetti for the kids today (since I cook low carb I rarely make them pasta). During dinner as they were eating and talking back and forth I suddenly had a sense memory. I was suddenly in my grandmother’s home in Hazleton in her basement, where she used to make spaghetti from scratch. My sister and brother and I used to run around this house from top to bottom like-well, like little kids (and it had an attic, so we’re talking four floors here). My grandmother used to make sausage in the basement too (it was set up as a second kitchen), and hang it up to cure. She also used to make “Pumpkin Flowers,” which were out of this world. They were squash flowers dredged in (I think) egg, flour, and cheese and pan fried. We had good times there. It’s funny how my kids remind me of specific memories in my own childhood. I miss my grandmother–she died in 1988 on the day I met my wife–but I’ll always have my memories of her. I hope I can give my kids great childhood memories like mine to carry through their lives.

Four years ago tonight I was at York Hospital with my wife waiting for little Drew to appear. We didn’t know it was him, of course (we didn’t even know it was a boy!), but there he was. The labor was much easier than with Alyssa. In fact, I didn’t feel a thing (Hmmm–my wife is about to hit me). They got the epidural in right away and Denise kind of eased her contractions along all night (you bet she got the epidural–no toughing it out for us. Heck, I tried to get them to give me an epidural too.). We both dozed all night (at least I dozed), and at 7:55 am the next morning, while I was talking to my sister on the phone, they said it was time to push. I said goodbye to Lisa and 8 minutes later at 8:03 am, Drew was born.

Drew would repay us for the easy birth by screaming for the next 12 solid months. He did eventually stop (except for “special” occasions, of course), and we’ve now regained at least 18 percent of our sanity…

Part of raising your kids is remembering your true, best self.

Nothing beats snuggling your kids to protect them from the thunderstorm.