The Square Blue Car

Before there were mini-vans or SUVs, there was the Volkswagen Bus, which was basically a mini-van.  The smaller version was called a Volkswagen Square-back.  It was our first second car.

Dennis and I had just moved to California and you have to have a car in California, if just to appreciate the freeway system.  On our trip to look for a house we rented a car.  Even though we were used to St. Louis traffic, nothing prepares you for driving in Los Angeles.  We had often been in bumper-to-bumper traffic.  Driving seventy miles per hour was no big deal, either.  It was the bumper-to-bumper traffic WHILE driving seventy miles per hour that was terrifying.

Nevertheless, I had to have a car, so after we got settled in our new city we went to the car dealer recommended by people at Dennis's new job and came home with the cutest car they had.  (Well, it was my first car!)  It was not the newest car on the lot, or the biggest, but it was blue and I liked it.

We lived in Fountain Valley, south of Los Angeles and about twenty minutes from Disneyland, and the first year we lived there we went to Disneyland thirteen times.  At first we went to experience it for ourselves but after that we were tour guides for every friend and relative who came to visit and, of course, Disneyland was first on the list of must-sees.  Since Dennis was often working, I got to take everybody in my blue Volkswagen Square-back.

It only had a few little quirks.  First, the headlights didn't work.  As you know, I rarely drive at night since I don't see well in the dark, so that didn't pose a problem.  If we went out at night Dennis drove us in his car.  The other thing was that the windshield wipers didn't work either.  Or rather, they did work.  They just wouldn't turn off once you turned them on.  No matter that any rain might have stopped twenty minutes before, the wipers went back and forth, back and forth ad nauseam until you turned the car off.  And often they went right back to chugging along when you turned the car on again if the time lag was not to their liking.

This usually wasn't a problem because California was in a drought at the time and we didn't even find out about the wiper thing until long after we had the car.  Our friend at church, who was somewhat of a mechanic, said the lack of lights and the wayward wipers were probably part of the same short in the electrical system.  That made sense, but still, I didn't worry about it because neither problem came up often.

And then, the Perfect Storm occurred.  My sister and her two sons, about eight and eleven at the time, came through on their way home from Tokyo.  Of course we had to go to Disneyland.  Dennis had to work, so it was the four of us in the square blue car.  Disneyland was as much fun as usual.  We went on Space Mountain.  We rode the Teacups.  We climbed into the faux rowboat and ducked down to hide from the Pirates of the Caribbean.  It was all rides, all the time, several times.  (Prices were considerably less back then.)  And all of a sudden, we realized the sun was setting.

Like four kinds of Cinderellas (well, it was Disneyland!) we made a dash, not for our pumpkin coach, but for the square blue car, and headed into the dusk.  All around us people were turning on their headlights.  The best I could do was turn on the emergency flashers.  Oh, wait.  In my hurry to find the flashers I hit the windshield wiper knob.  So, off we went, flashers flashing, windshield wipers wiping, and every car we encountered blinking its lights at us to let us know the headlights weren't on.  The twenty minute ride from Anaheim to Fountain Valley seemed like a hundred and twenty.  My sister, ever supportive, scrunched down in the passenger seat with just her eyes showing, trying to help navigate without being seen.  Like anybody from Tokyo was going to recognize her!  I have no idea how we managed to make that drive without being stopped by a police car.  But the boys thought it was the most fun ride they were on all day!

When we moved from Fountain Valley we left the blue car behind and I got a square-ish orange Nissan.  The lights worked and the windshield wipers turned off when ordered to do so.  The only quirk it had was that it backfired like a cannon going off every time I drove it on the freeway.  Hey, you can't have everything.