Driven

 A very long time ago, my older brother bought a used Volkswagen. He purchased it from the local VW dealer, who were apparently so enthused by this exchange that they threw in a blue button-down shirt with a logo on the shoulder and silver piping that ran down both sleeves. Year later, when I bought my own blue bug, my big brother handed this shirt down to me. I wore it proudly for many years. In my prime, I would sometimes wear it when I went out to bars, and I would tell anyone who would listen to me that I was on the Volkswagen racing team. I would go on and on about how it was Doctor Porsche who developed the "people's car" way back when. Which, according to the lore I generated, meant that if you were so inclined you could put a Porsche engine in a bug and watch it go. 

I do not believe that my clever ruse fooled anyone, but it was a line that I used on several occasions. To my own amusement and nobody else's in particular. It should be noted that all that talk was backed up by my ability to change the spark plugs and eventually forget to add oil to my air-cooled engine that would eventually throw a rod and catch fire on the shoulder of US Route 81 just outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was not, as they say, a "car guy."

My son, as I have mentioned here on several occasions, is. A "car guy," that is. Some nine months ago, he started on an odyssey that had him taking the engine out of his Toyota Supra and exchanging it for a Lexus V8. It sounded to his parents like it was a pipe dream, even though he had previously preformed feats of automotive daring that included installing new brakes, a new muffler, and countless permutations of his stereo system. 

This past Saturday evening, that Supra with a Lexus V8 engine pulled into our driveway, purring like a kitten. A great big gas-powered kitten. It is at this moment that I feel completely free to tell you that I had given my son that Volkswagen shirt a few years back. And now I feel I had something to do with it. Me and Doctor Porsche.