Kev's Log

Black and White Polaroid, Late Spring, 1969
from the KS ancient archives
In My Life,
I've owned and operated no less than thirteen VW's.
From my first car, a black Karmann Ghia and at one point a red/white micro-bus,
the other eleven, were all Bugs of various description.

On a sunny, late spring day on the north shore of Long Island driving the tree lined main road of my home town while involved in navigating a high speed sweeper turn, something went wrong with a front end component on the bug. A catastrophic failure that Instantly sucked me across the oncoming lane and into a telephone pole.
Everything came to a very abrupt stop, a sudden impact.
I have lucid and vivid memory of slow motion airborne microscopic glass shards floating about, hundreds of particles highlighted by the sun as I drifted in and out of consciousness and pain inside the bugs cockpit.
Dream like...The ambulance transport was also a grey area of memories as was the performed emergency room procedures.
I still have the feeling of three or four hospital staffers transferring me from the ER gurney into my hospital bed.
A strange feeling, but one of relief without personal demands or conflict.
The broken passenger side windshield result of my now crushed right elbow which transmitted up to a broken collar bone and further onto concussion.
In the day, VW Bugs were solid German steel and absent of any "crumple zone" attributes. If you hit something hard enough...
YOU crumpled, at times, worse than the vehicle itself.
It was a very painful summer wrapped in plaster for ten weeks, but it never once stifled any further illegal or delinquent behavior...

Kev's Log: "Inside Passages"

... self ...