We've packed up the new Lazer Blue Beetle. That's sort of in honor of my late Uncle Halvor Rolfsrud. It was Halvor who discovered the marvelous traction and durability of a rear-wheeled Volkswagen bug and bus.He used these as off-road vehicles on the farm, driving up and down ditches, coulees, ploughed fields, wherever he chose to go his little bug would take him.
He removed the passenger seat so he could use it as a pickup. Tools, barbed wire, whatever would ride shotgun. Because of this adjustment, if you traveled with him, you sat behind the tools in the back on the tiny bench seat and bounced around like a basketball, firmly grasping the hand grips, crouched like a coiled spring. The bug had a flat steel bottom so we feared nothing, we could slide off a rock if necessary. When I worked for Halvor back in the sixties, I rode back there on Sundays mostly, when, on our only day of relative rest, we drove around vast pastureland to be sure the roaming cattle herds had enough water and salt.
When Steve and I went fencing early one summer, we loaded down the VW bus with wire stretchers, post hole diggers, spools of barb wire, lots of staples, hammers and pliers. And Aunt Martha's fried chicken and a gallon of 7-Up. Halvor liked 7-Up and kept it around. He liked the way the bubbles soothed his stomach.Kathleen's new beetle has a front-engine, lots of room and cushy seats. We also hope to get close to the advertised 32 MPG on 1-94. Gas went up to $3.25 overnight. We think it is a conspiracy by the gas companies to take advantage of the Rolfsrud Reunion weekend.
