[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] [New Search]
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. ------------------------------------------------------------------- List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list or mailto:help@vwtype3.org