I lived most of my teen years with a bruised shoulder. My brother and I engaged in a game called “slug bug” on road trips. We weren’t content with the games Mom gave to pass the time. Car bingo and “I Spy” just wasn’t violent enough for my older brother, who seemed to think pounding on Ed was an Olympic event. I enjoyed it because it was my only opportunity to hit my big brother back without starting WWIII.
The slug bug game was simple enough. If you spotted a VW Beetle moving in any direction, you yelled “Slug bug!” The first one to yell had the right to “tap” the other player in the upper arm with his fist. These “love taps” to the arm resulted in big bruises on me. Soooo, why did I continue to play, you ask. We are brothers, of course!
Where I am leading with this story? The number of bruises corresponded with the increasing numbers of VWs on the road in the 1960’s. Americans had fallen in love with this quirky car that was built in Germany. Volkswagen America began importing them in the late 1950’s. Soon, Bugs were everywhere. Their popularity was not lost on Hollywood. Disney took Dean Jones, one of their stars, and put him in the movie, “The Love Bug.” The real star was a VW Beetle named Herbie. Jim Douglas (Dean Jones) had acquired a VW Bug with a personality, a racing spirt that propelled a washed-up driver to first place in the racing circuit. Buddy Hackett was Dean’s mechanic who talked to the car and tried to convince Dean that the car was winning the races, not his superior driving skills. Well Dean didn’t want to hear that! The villain in the story did believe it and went about sabotaging the mechanic and car by providing Irish whisky for both. There is nothing worse than a race car with a hangover!
This series of movies made Disney a lot of money. It also showed how much America had come to love the little economy car with a unique shape. The VW Bug and Bus became almost cult cars for the hippies. College students would vie for the record of how many people they could stuff into a Bug. California spawned the Dune Buggy, which was light, durable, easy to repair, air-cooled, and it only took four men to flip it back onto four wheels. The Great Sand Dunes in Southwest Colorado had hundreds of Dune Buggies bouncing around on weekends until it was banned. Bruised arms were replaced with bruised kidneys. I have seen several wonderful vintage Bugs and VW Buses around Meeker, may they live forever
By ED PECK – Special to the Herald Times
