Moonbeam Breaks the Drawbar

One of the outstanding rules of the world of old VWs is that travelling with two buses is twice as safe as driving with just one bus. There have been extrapolations from this basic rule, some schools of thought maintaining that travelling with 10 buses would be 10 times as safe as travelling with just one while other schools hold to an inverse relationship, claiming that if there are more than 5 buses at least one is certain to break down, holding up all of the others.

In either case, we were traversing the mountains of Pennsylvania in two buses, the 1966 Moonbeam with Kevin at the wheel and Mario's 1973 Vokswagenzord, returning from a Labor Day weekend of dissipation at Mr Appleby's. Both buses were filled with campers and camping equipment, mud and dirty pots and pans.

Just outside the municipality of Elliotsville, which is much more of a municipality on the map than in real life, having absolutely no commercial establishments whatsoever, Moonbeam lurched to the berm and continued down a gentle slope to stop in the stream below. Mario, thinking this a carefree lark, followed in the Volkswagenzord, but when we got a load of Kevin's eyes ("big as saucers", Denise said later), it was apparent that the rule of old VWs travelling in pairs was being proved once again.

Once the bus had been hauled to the shore, we all took turns crawling under in order to agree that indeed the drawbar had broken. The drawbar, on the older buses, connects the steering box to the tie rods, exerting control over the direction of the front wheels according to the whims of the driver. Once broken, the front wheels are free to steer according to their own whims, which in this case included a dunk in the stream.

Now the reason that it is safer to travel with two old VWs is that when one breaks down, the other is available to scrounge parts, although in this case, being a holiday morning and being the back woods of the Laurel Highlands, the advantage appeared slim.

Down the road a few miles, we found a pay phone outside the closed beer distributor and started making calls. Alas, there appeared to be nobody open in the Pittsburgh-Wheeling-Harrisburg area who carried VW parts and all of the tow truck drivers were either drunk or not back from their charter bus tour to Atlantic City, so we returned to the stranded Moonbeam and sampled some delicious broccoli eggrolls that Pam had prepared. As Sarge used to say, "Fall back, regroup, and weigh the difference", so we studied our options.

Aside from returning all the way back home to snag a new drawbar or waiting for the tow truck operators to return from their gambling weekend ("and what happens if they all won?"), the only viable solution appeared to be a trip across the panhandle of West Virginia to the Appalachian foothills of Ohio where Mario had a friend who had some old buses.

And so, hours later 3 of us were wending up steep dirt roads and driveways, fording streams and crossing narrow bridges constructed of woodland materials as Mario tried to remember exactly where his buddy lived. Using the phone was out of the question, as the fellow lived so far off the road that he used kerosene for lighting and cooking. The Volkswagenzord proved equal to the task, although there was one rock hill which almost bested it.

When we found the place, it was in the midst of the militia meeting and there were about three dozen guys in camo loafing on the porch and milling in the yard. We were pretty quickly surrounded, and it seemed as though everyone had fire arms.

Mario's friend Vince came down from the house with a shotgun. Seeing that it was Mario, he laughed and put up the gun, but he continued to cast a baleful eye on the rest of us. Even though we were friends of Mario's, this was evidently a suspicious part of the country. One guy asked Kevin if he was with the ATF and Kevin said he couldn't even spell it, which was a good answer because the fellow offered him a sip of "mountain vodka" and Kevin hardly choked at all getting it down, which counted for big points. When we offered them a taste of Mr Poison, I thought that they became almost friendly. Especially when it made the one fellow puke up the contents of his capacious stomach right there in the drive almost as soon as he touched the cup to his lips. None of them cared much for the taste, but they delighted in tricking their buddies into trying a sample. That's the thing about Mr Poison; you really don't have to swallow it at all. If you get a wee bit in your mouth, enough active ingredients get into the bloodstream through capillary osmosis to give you a buzz. So within half an hour, most of the militia was flying on autopilot without being so aware of it.

Vince's house itself was unremarkable, a frame dwelling with patched roof and in need of some paint. The driveway was more interesting, containing a cross-section of the automobile population, ranging from a Willys truck and a Mack series B to a new BMW 320i and a Mercedes 190. But that field behind the collapsing barn was the best of all. Here various VWs of all years and types had come to die. There were notchbacks and Ghias and Converts and Ovals and Splits. There were old models and new models. But, alas, there were no buses.

The reason for this became apparent on the other side of the barn. There were eleven buses of varying years and conditions, all sitting with the wheels removed on cinder blocks and facing side windows to the southern exposure. In the nose of each bus a hole had been cut and a large metal firebox with swinging door installed for wood heat.

"Greenhouses", Vince explained. "Tomatoes." I took a quick look through a windshield but they didn't look like tomatoes to me.

Kevin set to crawling under the buses, rousting chickens and displaying evidence as to where Mrs Mouse had raised the Winter household. Finally, underneath the 23-window he found a likely drawbar and managed to get it out using only a vise grips, crescent wrench and pry bar and that's what we took back to Elliotsville.

But before we left, we spent an hour or two on Vince's porch, drinking beer and swapping tales. And this is the reason that I'm telling you this story. Here we find some old, balding hippies from the 60s and gun-toting, right-is-right militiamen, and things were not the way they would have been in the old America-Love-It-Or-Leave-It days when the Vietnam War was raging and I was dodging the draft. Back then it would have been a confrontation, and probably an ugly one. Somewhere along the line, right has become left and left has become right, and I'm still pretty confused that our viewpoints have converged so much.

Has the fact that America now has a larger portion of its citizens in jail than any other country in the world (including South Africa) finally dawned on people?

Or is it the fact that we now seem to have the best justice system that money can buy? And these days, generation of funds seems to be the motive in creating laws in America.

"And if they wanted to get rid of drunk drivers, why wouldn't they get rid of bars with parking lots?"

Here in northeast Ohio, in just the last 6 months, we saw the Cuyahoga County Clerk of Courts go to jail, the County Auditor guilty of dereliction of duty, and the State Auditor guilty of extorting employeees, the Summit County coroner pleading guilty to theft in office, Judge Gallagher guilty of selling cocaine, and the Speaker of the state legislature, among others, guilty of accepting unreported "contributions". And all of them getting slaps on the wrist.

Did we change, or did the powers-that-be become so obvious in the voracious corruption of power that finally everyone noticed except the sheep grazing in the middle of the road ?

And have the sheep finally noticed too? There are more and more disaffected and disenfranchised people in this country every day and there aren't enough cells to lock them all away. And the solutions are not going to come from the Republickers or Demofatcats in Washington, or the crooked ("give me a dozen checks for $500 each and they won't have to be reported") legislators in Columbus, or most especially the Nazis in Brecksville (we usually spell it BreXville with a swastika instead of the X).

The solutions are going to have to come from you and me, and the ragged-right militia and the 60s anarchists, and the VWers and the normals, and everyone else realizing that we are all in the same boat with the same concerns and same enemies. We must take responsibility for our own lives and futures. Nobody else can - or will - do it for us. This is the moral. Write it down.

There is a striking similarity between America, seemingly devoid of metaphysical rudder, and Moonbeam, bereft of drawbar and meandering whimsically off the road and past the berm. An analogy for the Nineties. Moonbeam was easier to fix.

As we loaded up in the Volkswagenzord, saying goodbye to all of our new friends, Vince bade us adieu, saying "forget you was here" and we have.

We went back to install the drawbar in Elliotsville, and were on the road before dark. As to Vince, that isn't his name, and he doesn't live where I said he does, and in fact, the only part of this whole story that is true is that Pam's broccoli eggroll was delicious.

And if you are in law enforcement or work for the federal government, that isn't true either.
So there.

If you disagree with the opinions expressed here, E-mail Senator_Dan_Rostenkowski@Folsom_Prison.com

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