{"id":474,"date":"2005-07-22T20:28:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-22T20:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=474"},"modified":"2023-05-03T18:02:37","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T00:02:37","slug":"474","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=474","title":{"rendered":"Changing My Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"

No, you won’t see this blog recategorized or bounced from Blog Heaven<\/a> (I hope). I mean my automotive<\/em> religion.<\/p>\n

After a process of conversion that began in 1997 but like all conversions had its precursors, M. and I have moved from the Volkswagenkirche to the Cult of Jeep.<\/p>\n

It’s the woman’s fault, of course. I only bit the apple, uh, Wrangler, because she asked me to.<\/p>\n

In 1977, before we were married, M.’s Dodge convertible was failing and, with my guidance and promise to do maintenance, she bought a used 1970 VW Bug. That car went through fire and flood, war and revolution, before we finally let it go about 1990.<\/p>\n

It was followed by a 1969 pop-top camper bus (1982-94), a 1980 Rabbit pickup truck (1990-1997), and a 1984 pop-top Vanagon camper (1994-2005). The ’69 bus went to a woman who was born in 1969.<\/p>\n

The Rabbit pickup was M.’s daily driver, but its low ground clearance and so-so snow performance were a hindrance after we moved into the mountains. One day she expressed a desire to have a TJ\/Wrangler, and after some time had passed, lo, there was a Wrangler in the garage. And many a snowdrift it has blasted through (only occasionally having to be dug out).<\/p>\n

Then I bought a neighbor’s ’73 CJ-5. And Granville King’s bible <\/a> replaced the gospel according to John Muir<\/a> on the automotive bookshelf.<\/p>\n

It was only a matter of time. Parts for the Vanagon were becoming rarer, although we had a great European-car mechanic to keep it running. Its camping function was replaced by a pop-up trailer and a Jeep Liberty to pull the trailer with; and last Saturday I sold the Vanagon.<\/p>\n

Now we are pure Jeep cultists and can do things like complain about anachronistic Jeeps in movies such as Patton<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Maybe Dad started it,bringing home National Guard Jeeps and giving us kids rides when we were little. And I liked his Forest Service Willys wagon, although he preferred pickups. (But he had two Wagoneers, so it’s famtrad.) And I still somewhere yearn for a yellow Commando like one of the cool girls in my high school drove. You know what they say: It’s like coming home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No, you won’t see this blog recategorized or bounced from Blog Heaven (I hope). I mean my automotive religion. After a process of conversion that began in 1997 but like all conversions had its precursors, M. and I have moved from the Volkswagenkirche to the Cult of Jeep. It’s the woman’s fault, of course. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,444,442,443],"class_list":["post-474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blogging","tag-cars","tag-jeep","tag-volkswagen"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-474","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8816,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8816","url_meta":{"origin":474,"position":0},"title":"Hey, Baby, What’s Your Sign? Want to Check Out my Van?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 22, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"It is a fact in journalism that some things never get old. Stories about today's young people are evergreen: Are they hopeless screw-ups? Do they possess a brilliant new world-saving vision? Or both? Or neither? Live long enough, and everything recycles, like platform shoes (they were popular in the 17th\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":508,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=508","url_meta":{"origin":474,"position":1},"title":"Love and fungusM. and I\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 11, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Love and fungusM. and I went mushrooming today in the Wets. The local news had carried the story of yet another lost mushroom hunter, so she kept reminding me that she had no sense of direction and it was my job to get us back to the Jeep.We found a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":982,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=982","url_meta":{"origin":474,"position":2},"title":"End of a Photographic Era","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Your kids won't know what \"Polaroid\" means.I still have my dad's SX-70 in its leather carrying case. It's an expensive beast to feed, and when the last flashbar is used up, I will probably dump it. In my memory it sits next to his 1969 Jeep Wagoneer.Some people liked Polaroid\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"photography\"","block_context":{"text":"photography","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=photography"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4015,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4015","url_meta":{"origin":474,"position":3},"title":"Of New Agers, Nazis, and Vin Chaud","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"People described variously as \"hippies\" and \"New Agers\" apparently view a mountain in the French Pyrenees as some sort of a refuge from the upcoming apocalypse (you do have that on your calendar, don't you?). A rapidly increasing stream of New Age believers \u2013 or esoterics, as locals call them\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"France\"","block_context":{"text":"France","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=france"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8060,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8060","url_meta":{"origin":474,"position":4},"title":"Thoughts after a Funeral","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 27, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A member of my little rural volunteer fire department died last week at the age of 47.((It was not a line-of-duty death; other causes)) So the chief, the treasurer, and I put on our rarely worn dress uniforms for the funeral \u2014 M. came too \u2014 and we went off\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7711,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7711","url_meta":{"origin":474,"position":5},"title":"The Eagles of Candlemas","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Paganism is not the religion of the polis, but the polis (loosely defined) can support your Paganism. For the last two days, my Facebook feed has been filling up with people posting electronic clip art to the theme of \"Happy Bridget \/ Imbolc \/ Candlemas.\" Me, I spent three hours\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"birds\"","block_context":{"text":"birds","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=birds"},"img":{"alt_text":"pueblo eagle days","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/pueblo-eagle-days.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13353,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions\/13353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}