Good Old VW Van...

Good Old VW Van... 

With this winter's recent lockdown announcement, we decided that we were going to face it completely differently compared to last year. No bitterness at cancelled skating competitions or closed arenas. We were going to make the best of the situation!

So on the first day of lockdown, I found myself making the trip to Hamilton to pick up an ice rink tarp for our youngest daughter. My husband ordered all the wood necessary for the rink and that evening we scrambled to see how we could get it all back to NOTL from Niagara Falls. Why didn't we wait and have it delivered, you ask? Patience is not a strong suit in this family. My husband called and asked if our oldest daughter could meet him at Lowe's in Niagara Falls at 6:00 to help load the wood into his midsize SUV. She drove down and called and texted her dad several times. No answer. Then she called me and told me she was sitting on a pile of lumber in the store without any idea of where her dad might be. Strange...

Fifteen minutes later, I received a call from him. He was quite worked up as he was waiting at Home Depot, not Lowe's, probably sitting on a different pile of lumber, wondering where our daughter was and had finally connected with her to get her to come to the right store. We laughed it off, but I could tell that he was getting stressed. It was a lot of lumber! A few minutes later, he called again. They only had 12' lengths, not 8' lengths, as he had ordered. How were we going to get it all home?

Enter my mother's pride and joy, her 1992 VW Eurovan which has seen more of our continent than I probably ever will. It's the most compact recreational vehicle you will ever find! And yes, fortunately for us, it is still running.  I called her up to see if I could use it to pick up the wood. Of course, no problem. I had been cooking dinner, so I was rather hot from standing at the stove. I turned everything off and grabbed a light spring coat to put over my t-shirt and jeans and drove to my parent's home to get the van. I was just going to be sitting in a warm car, so what was the big deal?

When I pulled onto my parent's driveway, the white monstrosity was putt-putting loudly, waiting for me. The VW has a very distinct sound. I can hear it coming down the road minutes before it pulls onto our driveway. I thanked my mother and got into the van. As I buckling up, she signaled for me to roll down the window (yes, 30 years ago you could still roll down the window) indicating that she wanted to tell me something. I obliged. 

"The heater is broken!" she told me apologetically. "There's no heat!" I shrugged it off as not to worry about it and rolled off her driveway as smoothly as I could.

Now anyone who has every driven a VW van knows that you sit so high and right up against the dashboard, it is quite unnerving. The first minute was spent driving carefully and getting used to the shoebox (sorry, Mom) on the road. The next minute and all the time afterward, was spent shaking and chattering as I started putting my hands under my legs to keep them warm. So sitting in a not so warm car, turned out to be a bit of a bigger deal than I had anticipated in my light spring coat! Before I had even reached the slight incline in St. Davids, I had put on my hood and felt the cold seep into my body as if I had been on the slopes for eight hours. 

At every stoplight, I looked ahead, trying not to observe the curious glances of my fellow drivers looking at the loud vehicle idling beside them.  Every time I would step on the gas, the van would make a loud purring sound, like a geriatric cat trying to find its voice after years of disuse.

I arrived at Home Depot (not Lowe's) and found my husband and daughter waiting with the biggest stack of lumber. There was no way any of that would have fit into my husband's vehicle! My mother had had the foresight to fold down the bed to make one large area in the Eurovan . The 12' lengths stacked beautifully beside me and most of the wood fit in without issue. The smaller pieces fit into my husband's car. 

Now to make it home. The wood had been stacked overtop of the gearshift and it took a bit of maneuvering to get my hand under it to shift into drive. The shoebox probably had never had so much weight in it and worked very hard as the geriatric purring turned into downright angry growling as I led the slow caravan back home.

Two days later, the ice rink was completed and after 28 hours of filling it with two hoses, the only thing left was to wait for the freezing temperatures! And we have had them. Our whole family, not just our skater, have been enjoying the rink. The crisp cuts with each stroke when you first get on the ice sounds like nature's music. The cold, fresh air in your lungs reminds us that we are Canadian! 

It was family affair to get the ice rink up and running. But what better way to enjoy this lockdown than being surrounded by the people you love in such a beautiful landscape! Now, anyone have a Zamboni I could borrow today?

Lolita Schimann Hale