Most probably know the story. It has been one of those life-defining stories that I re-tell to rolling eyes and knowing smiles. I can't help it... and, frankly, probably won't help it. Nevertheless, I'll give the briefest of overviews here. In 1999, I got an old BMW motorcycle off my dad to travel Europe. We managed to spend 4 months covering just shy of 20,000 miles on Fred (the name we gave our two-wheeled friend). Fred had lots of character and didn't always get us there in the end, but we enjoyed the experience immensely for what it was.
Only a week into owning the Passat, I am able to draw a number of paralells between the car and Fred. For visual learners, I will make a little table:
| Fred | Passat | |
| German | x | x |
| high mileage | x | x |
| leaks oil | x | x |
| convienence items that once worked now don't | x | x |
| dad describes himself as having driven it 'hard' | x | x |
| dad declares it "unquestionably reliable" | x | x |
| Oddly, only one key | x | x |
I will draw your attention to the last couple of points, starting with the provision of a single key. When I picked up Fred from Dad, he handed me the key and said, "Whatever you do, don't lose this key. It's the only one and getting another will be expensive and inconvenient."
For those that know me, it will be unsurprsing that it took me about 3 weeks to lose that key. We were in the Netherlands, enjoying Dutch hospitality in a small and slightly strange town on the coast. We walked about, had a pub lunch, visited the local museum, fed the birds and even went for a swim in the public pool. When we woke the next morning, the key was gone. Really, really gone. After a very long and stressful search, I pushed the bike a little over a mile to a motorcycle mechanic on the far side of town. After discussing various options which cost a lot of money, he mentioned that he had a number of keys for BMWs that had been left at the shop over the years. Out of an small, oily, wooden box he fetched a key and put it in the ignition. Despite not fitting snuggly, it turned and the bike sputtered to life. Success! And cheap. We laughed, he didn't charge us, and we drove off with a 'new' key... which I lost some weeks later in Bristol. Knowing any key fit, we grabbed one of Ange's suitcase keys and it too worked. It was so loose in the ignition, that we had to attach the key to a piece of string, which in turn was taped to the speedometer. Only we didn't have string, so we used dental floss. And the only tape we had was bright yellow duct tape that had been used previously to mend a broken panier. So everywhere we drove, the key would be flopping about the speedo on a piece of dental floss taped to the bike. Very innovative if not always appreciated by my fellow Beemer owners.
When we left on our motorbiking odessy, I questioned my dad on the reliability of the old BMW. "It's German," he said. "It'll go forever!" Later that same week, he noted, "Why, I'd take that to Moscow tomorrow without a moment's hesitation." Another moment of fondness for his time using that bike, he claimed it was the most reliable bike he had ever known.
To cut a ridiculously long story short, we broke down in every single county we visited. The bike leaked a steady flow of oil from the shaft. "No worries," dad said when I reported the development in a phone call to him, "just keep topping it up!" Our clutch cable went in Scotland. We were forced to use a small wooden block to prop up the side stand so the bike wouldn't fall over. We blew a tyre in France. We had what can only be described as 'total system failure' in Ireland. In Germany, the BMW dealership pinched an tool off a new bike and gave it to us for free to encourage our quick departure from the fore-court of their dealership. In Switzerland all we could find was the above mentioned bright-yellow duct tape to tape the paniers and their frame back together. The electrical system was so clapped out, that at one point in time in France we had no speedo, no tach, no headlights or indicators, no brake lights and my handwarmer stopped working. Occassionally a bump would jolt some or all of the electrical functionality back into the bike only for another bump to stop them from working again. We simply could not run the risk of driving at night and were confined to day driving. It wasn't lost on us that when we arrived back in Mundesley at my dad's house, he came out with a laugh and gave us both a big hug, commenting without a tinge of irony in his voice: "I can't believe you made it back with the bike!"
So here I am driving a high mileage, German vehicle that my dad has declared unquestionably reliable. As he handed it off to me, he notes that, "whatever you do, don't lose the key. It's the only one and they're expensive to replace!" He went so far as to suggest that we sell our Toyota, save the money and just drive the Passat. I admit that I smiled at the thought of it. But he has a different perspective on vehicles than I (or, I should think, most readers of this blog). Case and point was the other day when I asked how he was enjoying his new 2004 Peugot 407 (it's Peugot's nice, full sized turbo deisel and his has only 10,000 miles since new). It is probably one of the newest cars he has ever owned. It is modern in every sense of the word. And what does my dad like about it? He says to me the other day, "Ben, this car is so nice to drive. The heater is fantastic! It is warm as you want. They call it climate control or something."
God love the guy who is pleased that his brand new car has a decent heater.
And--note to self--what kind of heater do I now have?
Thank you
We've received a wonderful bunch of supportive and thoughtful messages from friends about the burglary and thefts. Thank you. It has been so nice to hear from friends. Many have offered that if they could do something, they would. While Canadian care packages make me warm inside, if you really want to do something please consider allocating some of your 2007 charitable giving to a charity in your area that tackles root causes of poverty. I suspect that where poverty is on the decline, so too is theft. If I'm wrong, reducing poverty is surely worthwhile in itself...
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