Grey Skies & Volkswagen Bugs

A blank canvas for beginning and remembering what came before and what comes next - My Sunday Best # 47

Today, I started my Sunday walking in the woods with Dennis. This morning, while I walked, I listened to Margaret Renkl read from her book The Comfort of Crows.

Last night, my mind was busy thinking about the new album I am currently writing. I think I’m going to call it Travelin’ Light, but I’m not sure yet. I have five songs written for it already, but I’m still thinking about the concept, the artwork, and all the details that go into birthing something new into the world.

I couldn’t help but remember a similar project with a central theme that I embarked on in January five years ago. When I started that album, which I later titled Postcards From the Past, I didn’t know what the outcome would look like then either, I just began…in January…on the date my first son was born.

I decided to take an old photograph, tell a story, turn it into a song, and send it as a testament of love—a modern-day love letter. I had no idea at the time that one little picture had so many stories to tell. A picture indeed paints a thousand words, but in reality, a thousand words barely scratch the surface, and even with so many words, it can be hard to find the right ones. But I love a good challenge.

Here’s the first story/song that got the momentum rolling on that album.

A letter to my son,

It’s one of my favorite pictures of you. You weren’t even two years old. Your brother wasn’t born yet. You were sitting in the driver’s seat of a blue Volkswagen Bug with your head barely rising above the window. You are smiling, and your tiny hands are gripping the steering wheel with your imagination in high gear, driving somewhere.

I used to drive that car too. I even drove it over Berthoud Pass in Colorado on snow-packed roads. I guess with the engine in the back it must have had some sort of traction. You would ride shotgun, buckled in your car seat, bundled up in a hat and mittens with a blanket tucked around your feet. Riding in that car was cold. If the heat worked at all, we couldn’t feel it. Of course, the exhaust fumes required that I drive with the window part-way down so we could breathe, which didn’t help the heat situation.

The VW Bug had a history, as all cars do. We bought it from some friends, a family I had known since 5th grade. Their daughter, Brenda, was my best friend—she died in a car accident the year we graduated. The two of us had ridden in the backseat of that bug many times. It used to be her older brother’s car. He had “surfer boy” good looks and played drums in the family band. He also became an Olympic athlete, achieving Olympic stardom in several Nordic skiing events, including ski jumping. I tagged along with Brenda to several of his competitions. At that time, I was a fairly new Colorado transplant, moving from Southern California, with a car full of 8-track tapes and a head full of Beach Boys’ songs—“Get Around, Get Around, I Get Around.” 

A few years later, the car was handed down to one of Brenda’s older sisters, who was attending cosmetology school in Denver. I remember riding in the backseat on a warm spring day with the windows down, hanging out with the older girls, and hoping to be like them one day—pretty and popular.

Oh, the stories that little bug could tell. If I close my eyes, I can still smell the vinyl seats. We ended up buying the car right before you were born. I don’t remember whatever happened to it. Maybe it got restored and is still on the road today, but probably not. That VW Bug lives on in a photograph with a smiling boy behind the wheel, ready to take on the world and drive.

\("\!"\)

Blue VW Bug

I’ve got a picture of you from a long time ago
You weren’t even two years old 
You were smiling at me from the driver’s seat 
Of a blue Volkswagen Bug 

With your mouth, you made the sound of the motor
Your feet didn’t reach the floor
Your tiny hands held tight to the steering wheel
Of that old Volkswagen bug 

And you were driving, driving down the road                                                 
And you were smiling, taking a ride                                                                    
And you were flying, flying to another place                                                    
Singing a song in a blue Volkswagen Bug 

My friends and I would squeeze in the backseat                                           
My older sister drove us around                                                                     
We’d giggle when she talked about being in love 
In that old Volkswagen bug

That old car had some stories and I know a few                                                
But my favorite story of all is the one about you                                          
We were driving down a snow-packed road with the window rolled down 
You sat next to me with a blanket tucked around your feet

Listen to the song Blue Volkswagen Bug below