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[T3] Need to regain your faith in humanity? Read on!


Seattle warmth and character delivered in a classic VW
Friday, June 22, 2001

By SUSAN PAYNTER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

Newcomers and old-timers debate it. Are polite Puget Sounders actually as cold as Hood Canal clams?

Vivian McPeak got his answer so fast it took his breath away this week. Within hours of reading a
Wednesday column on the mean-spirited torching of McPeak's beloved rainbow-colored, bumper-stickered
VW squareback in Seattle's Roosevelt District last Saturday, a perfect stranger had extended her
hand. And in it was the title to her own adored teal blue '69 squareback "classic."

"There's just something about Volkswagen people," West Seattle glass artist Liza Englesby told me
when she called to offer the car, free of charge.

And maybe something about Puget Sound people, too, something that they're too shy to show.

Englesby, who is 37, didn't even want to give her name at first. She was reluctantly writing an ad
for her "Vdub" on Wednesday when her husband, Frank, handed her the column, saying, "You've got to
read this."

Englesby's first car was a VW bus when, in her early 20s, she was a "flower-child throwback" living
in Wallingford. She no longer needs the '69 squareback parked in her yard but was having a hard time
letting it go. "I had it painted bright blue so I know he (McPeak) will love it," she said. "I redid
the carpeting and the overhead and, although it needs a little work -- like a turn-signal light and
other minor repairs -- my mechanic says the engine is in very good shape."

She called McPeak in Fresno, where he is visiting a "long-lost daughter."

Then McPeak called me.

The free-speech activist was nearly speechless. A singer, musician, public access TV host and an
emcee of Seattle's annual Hempfest, McPeak found himself struggling for words to express his
amazement.

"I'm stunned," he said. "Seattle really does have a heart and a soul. I didn't need my faith in
humanity restored but this confirms the faith I already had," he said.

And there was more to come.

Testimonials to the ways in which McPeak has touched people's lives poured in like salve on the
burn.

Last Saturday morning about 6:30 a.m., and just before McPeak was to enter his car in the Fremont
Fair's Art Car parade, someone stuck a lighted flare or huge Roman candle through the window of the
vehicle. McPeak suffers from multiple sclerosis and severe pain. By the time he made it to the
street, firefighters had axed the interior of his car down to its frame.

For years the colors and ever-changing messages encrusting the car had brought smiles and reactions
from passers-by. "That car was as well-loved as the Fremont Troll," e-mailed one of more than 50
people who wrote and called about the fire.

"He (McPeak) helped me when I was homeless," said a caller named Eleanor Pope, who was determined to
find McPeak a new vehicle for his ideas and crusades.

Many who have worked with McPeak on civil rights issues and on crisis outreach to street youth
called and wrote, vowing support.

Ric Smith of Shoreline credits McPeak with saving his life, literally. "There are angels among us,"
he wrote.

Seeing McPeak in person or in his "rainbow roadster," people may be "misled by the long hair, the
flamboyant public persona and the psychedelic attire and vehicle," wrote admirer Edward A. "Moon"
Aldridge of Marysville. "But he (McPeak) is a man of unfailing courage and boundless optimism ...
one of the sanest, most peaceful and dedicated human beings I have known."

Amen, wrote Barbara Stoner, just one of several certain another "wonder car" will rise from the
rainbow ashes. "Blessed be," she wrote. "And Jerry On!"

Friends and strangers alike wrote and called from all over Washington state and from as far away as
Arizona.

Meanwhile, in Yakima, reader Dennis Hasslinger and a friend at Yakima's Ed's VW Repair -- neither of
whom has ever met McPeak -- were plotting a way to replace McPeak's car by the time he arrives home
tonight.

Others were ready with checkbooks, among them Mark Firmani of Seattle's Mark Firmani and Associates.
"As a former flower child myself, I have a check with his name on it right here, ready to go,"
Firmani laughed.

Donations to help McPeak with car repairs can be sent to: The Free Speech Car Fund at Pacific
Northwest Bank, 1111 Third Ave., Seattle 98101.

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