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THE VOLKSWAGON BUG
The 12 years of my life, from the age of 5 until the age of 17, when I graduated from High School, was for me the age of the saddle horse. The little Volkswagon Bug was the equivalent of the saddle horse for Verna and me from 1955 to 1967, while we lived in Turkey and Jordan. We owned one for 18 years after we returned from over seas. Verna and her red VW Bug were inseparable. I wanted to trade it in on a new car, but nothing doing, I had to trade the one I was driving. She was willing to ride in the new car, but to sell her Red VW Bug was out. It took an old man with a big Buick, who ran a stop sigh, to put it out of business. The front of the Bug looked like an accordion after he hit it.
The VW was made in Germany before World War II. It was called the peoples wagon, "Folksvagon". After the war, the stock could have been bought for almost nothing. Some U.S. soldiers bought stock to help the factory get started and made millions on their investment. I have seen the VW Bug in at least a dozen countries.
In August of 1962, Verna and I purchased a green VW Bug at the factory in Wolfsburg Germany. We ordered it when we were in Jordan, and on our return trip to Jordan we picked it up at the factory, in Wolfsburg, and drove thru Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.
We have owned 6 VW Bugs. When we came to the US on home leave we would pick up the Bug in New Jersey, and drive to Colorado and Nebraska to see family and friends, and then sell it when we returned to duty.
The VW Bug could go any place any other passenger car could go, and many places where they couldn't. We drove through the narrow winding streets of the old City of Jerusalem, we could enter the St. Stephens gate which was normally used for donkeys and horses. We climbed the hill to the castle at Karak [sic] Jordan, we crossed the desert to Palmyra in Syria. We navigated the streets of Damascus, Paris and Beirut, and many other cities and villages in the Middle East. We rented one in Marseille, France and drove thru France to Paris.
One of the most scenic routes we have ever driven, was along the Mediterranean coast in southern Turkey. A friend of mine once said of this road, [sic]"It is so crooked and has so many sharp turns that you can see your own headlights in your rear view mirror." The sight of the blue sea and small wooded islands is a sight I shall always remember
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Metzger Memories
