I delivered one of these at my grandfather's funeral once, and I'd be lying if I said it was stirring or particularly moving. I didn't even write it, to be honest, and I'd never seen so much left out of a eulogy in my life. It painted a picture of the man so utterly different from the one I knew that had I walked in on the affair with no knowledge of the proceedings, I wouldn't have known who it was. The script cast him as a saint, and did quite a decent job of doing so. It was also hands down the #1 most completely boring document I ever read. It cast him as the most average, nondescript saint in the books, and I know he probably would have started retching if he heard it. It was devoid of everything that made his life interesting and in preserving his integrity, it also utterly drained his life of its true meaning. I'm not going to do that again. I'm not going to guarantee that this will do my bus justice, or that it will even be vaguely decent, but I will say this for it; it will be true. And it will be from the heart.

Cassidy was 'born' in 1972. I looked into her VIN number once, and the reports stated that she was laid down November 30, 1972 at the Wolfsburg plant in Westfalia Germany. She was rolled out completed on December 2, 1972, shipped to Canada for import, and from there to a dealership in Flint Michigan. She was bought by one Jonathan Dryden, who I never was able to track down, but who owned her until 1993 when she was sold to Jenny Westerfield of St. Cloud, Minnesota. She drove her to California in 1996, where she gifted it to her boyfriend David Ford of Santa Cruz, who drove it through college and for several years after. When Jenny became pregnant with their second child in 2007, Dave drove it back to Minnesota to visit her family with her, then took it to a Car show in Iola, Iowa where I took possession of her on August 3, 2007 for the price of 2,000 dollars cash. I didn't have 2,000 dollars cash, and for this I have to thank my unscrupulous banker uncle, whose penchant for lending money was overshadowed only by his penchant for pissing my mom off royally. Maybe mom was right when she said that buying a Volkswagen was the most utterly stupid thing I'd done, but at the time this was overshadowed by the excitement I felt at realizing a lifelong dream of owning a Volkswagen bus. I’d dreamed about that since the days when I used to hang around the Volkswagen shop in Straubville after class in 4th grade, and the dream never really died. I know I had to look back on that feeling of elation for comfort and reassurance no small number of times in the coming years. It was a slightly downhill slope from there (Slightly for the Himalayas, that is).

Cassidy wasn’t much of a bus. That’s an understatement actually. Despite defending her from all manner of abuse from friends, family, clergymen, postmen, milkmen, winos, street rabble, insurance salesmen, gangstas, and random folks on the street, I never really held any illusions about the fact that Cassidy was a bit of a lemon even by Volkswagen standards. Granted, not being strictly a bus, I suppose it wasn’t exactly her fault that she wasn’t a very good bus. She was a lot of things. Truck, people mover, freight van, and home on more than few nights when things weren’t going so well at my house. Being so many different things, I guess it wasn’t fair to expect her to be good at any one of them. She was passable at most of them, and that was frequently enough. Granted she had her mechanical failings, but I learned more from those failings than the average teenager and many adults ever learn about cars. If I hadn’t needed to strip her engine down to bare metal and reassemble it from the ground up, I may never have gotten a firm grasp on how engines work. Granted, I wasn’t feeling quite so charitable in my view of her at the time, and this measured reason was replaced with a string of strictly gut level blue words, but be that as it may…As is always the case, in retrospect I regret a lot of the harsh words I used in regards to her over the years, I realize now that she did her best. Was the threshold for ‘best’ slightly lower for a sub par Nazi designed beast of a steel bread loaf from the Nixon era? Certainly. But I realize that I got a lot of good service out of her over the years. Grudging, perhaps. Halting, uncertain, and faltering without a doubt . But for all my mom’s complaining about how much she broke down, I realize that mom rarely took her car further than around the block. I drove to all four corners of the state and beyond, on a regular basis. I traveled to LA, to Reno, to Seattle, to Portland, to San Diego, to a thousand unknown towns and cities from the farm country of the valley, to the foothills at Angels Camp, to Sacramento, Eureka, and a thousand other places. On shimmering eight lane freeways in the heat of the day near Anaheim, and on unpaved dirt roads around the lakes at Calistoga at night, Cassidy handled them all as well as she knew how on her 13 year old 8 ply tires. And every other place, from the mundane to the magical, from 7 Eleven to the Space needle. I drove every place, near and far, Marin headlands, specks of beach from Pismo up to Pebble, Dillon and Jenner, work, school, Minnesota, Oregon. And most of the time I got there. Yeah, it was rarely unscathed, at the very least I was usually deaf and frozen from the monotonous roar of an overworked flat four and the lack of modern amenities such as heat and window seals,. At worst, I was often tired, harried, and utterly at wits end from an hours long pit stop to repair some minor mechanical shortfall, and in a handful of cases I didn’t arrive by auto at all, instead walking (Or more likely staggering) into town after what was in the most extreme instance a 20 mile walk and falling asleep on the doorstep of a mechanic‘s shop to wait for morning to order some obscure part I had no spare for. But I realize now that isn’t the point, nor was it ever. I put more mileage on my bus in a week than my family put on our car collectively in 6 months. This, when she’d already started out with well over 400,000 miles on her (And the odometer still read a faithful 56,702 1/10, ah, the euphemism of a Volkswagen).. I pushed Azula II (Her bitchy and cobbled together little flat four, named separately because of her direct conflict with Cassidy’s sweet and gentle…HAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.…okay I’m good…nature) harder than any four cylinder engine had any right to be pushed, let alone a 36 year old 4 cyl engine strung together out of cheap and mostly low quality parts. Yeah, I spent a lot of time maintaining her, but I pushed her to the standard of a normal car, which she undoubtedly was not. Had I treated her like a show car, driven her only on weekends and kept her garaged, waxed, etc, and used only finest quality parts to restore her, then she undoubtedly would have been a dream car. But I didn’t. I treated her like a Volkswagen, like hippies, students, and working class Joes have treated Volkswagens for years; as cheap, hardwearing transportation. I pushed her hard, I drove her at speeds that a lot of Honda drivers would have questioned, I replaced only what was absolutely shot, and only when it couldn’t take one mile more. I ran her on low grade gasoline most of the time, and I drove her in all weathers. She was usually covered in mud, despite my best attempts to scrub her off.

There’s a quote ‘come kindly to terms with your ass, for it bears you.’ That’s sound logic, and it makes me realize now that in the same way I tolerated Cassidy, she tolerated me. Whenever I got restless late at night, and felt the compulsive need to take a midnight drive, she started, usually by the third crank. Whenever one of my friends’ asses ended up in the fire and I had to drive to some godforsaken spit of land or far flung police station to bail them out, she went. Cassidy was a car prone to mechanical spontaneity, she would break down anywhere, at anytime, for any reason. But by the same token, so too was her owner. I rarely thought in abundance before embarking on some bizarre, random, or otherwise completely unplanned trip to somewhere. Most of our 8 hour exoduses were the byproduct of about twenty minutes notice. We were good for each other that way. We each taught the other to keep an open mind. An hour spent by the side of the road working could be pretty peaceful, and I discovered a lot of nice little towns I might not have stopped in otherwise that way. By the same token, I pushed Cassidy to levels another owner might not have, and showed her a new way of life. And really, as a practical matter, she didn’t break down as much as everybody seemed to think she did. About 9 trips out of ten went off without a hitch, and that tenth one was usually something easily fixable. You only remember the really bad fixes and situations mechanically, cause the other ones were so mundane and the bad ones so unbelievably entertaining.

I always figured that loving a Volkswagen was sort of like having an Alcoholic relative; they take your money, abuse you, give you absolutely no reason to love them, test your patience to wits end, but you keep loving them because of the promise that they once showed, or the promise of what they might be if you just help them through it long enough. And just when you have absolutely no reason left to stand by them, just when you feel that you’re ready to throw in the towel and call endex, they do something so utterly amazing, or beautiful, or sweet, that it starts you loving them all over again. Cassidy was like that. A few times over the years, I got really dejected and was ready to sell her, light her on fire, give her to a Mexican circus, whatever, just so long as I wouldn’t have to see her ever again. But then, she’d pull something that impressed me utterly. It sounds funny to say that a car would be capable of surprising you, or being sweet, but in her own way, she could be. She’d give me a perfect ride some nights, not even far, and just rolling down Tamalpias Blvd. with both windows open and the radio on sweet and low, well sometimes life was good. I had some beautiful moments in the back of that bus too. Not sex or drugs, nothing like that, not like you’d think. I had my first real kiss in the back of that bus, on a cold clear night under the yellow streetlights of Dark Park in the canyon. Sometimes, laying there with the back hatch open, I’d just lay on my stomach and stare out at the ocean from Marin headlands, watching all those waves hit the shore, their backs dipped white in the moonlight. I remember the Space needle, and how it seemed to stand miles above us in the watery sunlight of Washington, like it was poking a hole in the cloudy sky above Seattle and letting the sun shine through it. Muir woods in the dark of the early morning, and the great trees around us basking in the shimmering yellow glow of Cassidy’s headlights. Sitting and staring at the peaks of Sierra Buettes in the clear golden expanse of mountain air with Erica. Driving down the back roads near Bolinas in the fading sunlight with Erica, the trees around us shining gold and casting me too blind to see. I have a lot of memories like that, some specific, some not, of Erica and I just driving along together. Granted, that bus stole a lot of good conversation, what with the engine noise, and forcing me to focus on driving and shifting, but the feeling of riding along with the two great loves of my life together with me could give me a feeling of hope, a glimpse of the future I used to think, like no other. And we did have some very deep conversations in the tattered vinyl bucket seats of her fishbowl cab. The funny thing, though, is that I honestly remember the times when I was driving silent and alone with her the most. I remember looking down at Reno as I coasted over the ridge from California one night as she slept, and just remembering the sense of promise I felt at looking at something that so resembled the emerald city is enough to fill me with that sense of hope all over again. Just Erica, me and my bus, ready to face the world come what may.

She was a source of pride from time to time to, in the very biblical seven deadly sins sense of the word. Despite my constant admonishments and berating of her, I wouldn’t hear an ill word spoken against Cassidy by outsiders. As far as I was concerned only five people in this world could berate my bus, or speak of it with any validity. Gabe Nunez, Nico Ferisse, Garret Hale, Steven Mohan (my father), and Erica London, all of whom had earned that right by pouring their own sweat and blood into the bus by helping me work on it. I’ll never forget the poor dairy science student who questioned why I would drive a piece of junk around the dairy when she wasn’t good for carrying anything. The memory of carrying a busload of tools over the high sierra still fresh in my mind, I stripped out the interior camper fixtures and seats, and fifteen minutes later asked him what, dollars to donuts, he wanted to bet that I could carry more of any farm good then his long on body short on bed 2007 ford. He bet me twenty dollars he could carry more hay bales than my bus. The final score was 7/12. I walked away twenty dollars richer, but the money honestly didn’t mean much. It was showing that arrogant apple knocker not to mess with a Volkswagen that had once carried 12 people to town unscathed that really made my day. Never underestimate the tenacity of a hippy and the carrying capacity of a Volkswagen.

The times when I drove down the road alone with it were numerous, but the bulk of my memories, and some of the best ones, relate to the friendships that deepened because of that bus. The fact is, we were all friends to begin with, and tight ones at that, and nothing in the world would have changed that. I’m not saying that the bus developed our friendships, or advanced them in any fashion that the natural course of a friendship wouldn’t have anyway ins some form or another. But I am saying that she made a lot of bonding experiences possible, and in her own way, she did help us all become closer. People always used to tell me that what they loved most about the Volkswagen was the community it spawned. VW owners always congregate together, and there’s a lot of overlap between tight knit communities that Volkswagens help to bridge. Deadheads, students, workers, craftsmen, artisans, hippies, otakus. All are tight little communities, and a lot of people in them own Volkswagens. So it stands that a Volkswagen is a great entry point for a lot of them. And Volkswagens help you meet a lot of people. I’ll never forget at Sunshine fest two years ago, after the concert, sitting in a field behind the concert, around a roaring fire while a couple of guys strummed a guitar and a base together, a couple of lesbians Garrett and I knew sat cuddling, while Garrett and I sang along to wake the dead, beating time on Cassidy’s slider. We all spent the night together, and I doubt if you’d ever seen a closer group. We didn’t know the two dudes we shared the bus with that night, and I never saw them again after, but that didn’t matter. There’s an unspoken bond with Volkswagens, from hitchhikers to roadies, to deadheads to squatters, that we all have to trust each other, and that all of us can. Some of that goes with the community, but really, you don’t get that kind of closeness with other cars. It certainly helps to own a VW.

Cassidy was a good bus, I realize now. Maybe not ideal, maybe a bit high maintenance, and maybe a little bit unpredictable, but then again, aren’t we all? She ferried me through a lot of danger alright, and I came out of a remarkable number of situations none the worse for wear when I should have been smeared all over the road. Fog banks too thick to see three feet ahead, stalls on mountain roads, accelerator malfunctions in the center of busy streets, and close proximity to an obscene number of base happy rap fans while marooned in traffic. Oh yeah, and traffic. San Jose to San Rafael in rush hour. Better cars haven’t survived the journey. A lesser car wouldn’t have. And even when she finally went, she made sure I walked away from it alright. Some folks will make the argument that a better car’s ball joint wouldn’t have given out like that, and wouldn’t have rolled over in the first place, but honestly I blame myself for not having enough skill to stop her before she rolled, and her fault or not, I still owe her a debt of gratitude for allowing me to walk away unscathed. To rights I should have been dead, no airbags, a three spin barrel roll at 60 MPH, shattered windshield and passenger windows, and no solid roof to top it off. I would have been dead if she wasn’t such a good car. Her fault or not, I still owe her my life, she gave hers protecting it from my way of thinking. And to those who said she was a mechanical scrub, I just want to mention the fact that after rolling 12 feet off the freeway, bouncing and rolling three times at sixty miles per hour, she still landed upright, and despite a broken accelerator cable, three shattered windows and a roof that was now bent over at a 45 degree angle, when I turned the key, her engine sprang to life on the first try. I reckon she was a real car there at the end, and a damned fine one at that.

She was a cop magnet, no doubt about it. I finally came to terms with the fact that my tail light was permanently ‘out’ after replacing three bulbs and rewiring it twice, all for a light that was always on when I checked it. I also had to accept that my driving evidently always resembled that of a drunk driver, despite never once receiving a test and never weaving even slightly to my knowledge. I’ll never forget how narrow an escape it was when two cops pulled Eric and I over on the way back from Nevada, a cache of newly purchased weapons stashed haphazardly under a coat between the front seats. Thank god they didn’t decide to toss the car that night.. I suppose I should resent Cassidy for attracting so many cops, but truth be told, half of it was probably driving through redneck counties with arch-liberal bumper stickers being partially if not fully to blame. And Thirteen stops without a single warning, conviction, or point on my license does make a great story for parties.

She was a workhorse too. If she hadn’t had such a crappy maintenece record, I would have sworn she was a dodge for the amount of work she pulled. I used her to pull several cars, one of which (Ironically my other Volkswagen), cost her a rear bumper. I totted tools, cargo, groceries, and freight of all sorts, most everything you could think of at one time or another. And what I didn’t carry, Garret did. Hay bales to heifers, garret covered the agricultural end. She carried an inordinate amount of weight for a car with an already undersized engine, and was as good a tractor as anything I’d ever seen. She carried a couch around on her roof for the better part of two weeks. She could push or pull anything, despite bogging down in the mud or sand a little easier than I would have liked. She made a decent stepladder, tanning bed, flat press, steamroller, skillet, canvas, billboard (Will Derky owes his freedom to us, though we respect Magister Hildebrand enough to call that debt even) and numerous other things that needless to say her makers never conceived of.

I could spend the rest of my life on this eulogy and I know that I’m not the only one. The anime club had some good times courtesy of Cassy too, beach trips, beauty pageants (I cringe at the thought), finding out that you can’t smoke incense no matter how hard you try and how badly you need a joint. We took a lot of day trips, and a lot of slightly longer ones. She carried all of us to Fanime for the 2009 convention, and I took her to anime expo the year before. We took her camping up on the Russian river, and on several runs to Nevada, one of which cost me my roof. She gave people rides home, picked people up, and was generally the CHAOS taxi cab. The fact is, there are too many memories for me to delve into. I have to cut this short sometime. They’ll never be a good time to say goodbye, but I guess now will have to suffice as well as any. I want to close with just one more memory, sitting in the redwood parking lot after school. All of us sat there in that bus at one time or another, just blissing out as best we could, laughing, hanging out, having good times. I think maybe those will be the times, however mundane, that we’ll remember. I ask all of you who have a any to write down a few memories you have of cassidy on the comments section of this page out of respect and in memorium for her. This one’s for Cassidy. This eulogy doesn’t do you justice, and I’m sorry for that, but like you, I did the best I could. You deserved a better end than befell you, and I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. You gave us too many happy memories to recount here, and rest assured you won’t be forgotten because of them. To Cassidy; a good bus, a decent friend, a traveling companion, a brave old girl who never shirked a chore and was as cheerful as she could be in all weathers. A good old car who always got us where we needed to go in the end, no matter how long or how arduous the journey. I drink you to god, and may you get to heaven, at least a half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead. Amen.

Keep on trucking.

Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la