美国国家公共电台 NPR Restoring VW Beetles, Buses ... And Dreams

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

In the town of Williamsport, Md., there's a small body shop that's built a big reputation restoring old Volkswagens. And as NPR's John Ydstie reports, it's also preserving some fond memories.

(SOUNDBITE OF METAL CUTTING)

JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE¹: Bob Cook owns this shop called Cooker's Restorations. He says he started paying attention to cars when he was 10 years old. And when he was 14, he talked his older brother into buying a car.

BOB COOK: He wanted to get a rabbit. I'm like, why would you want to get a rabbit? So I talked him into a Beetle². He bought the beetle. Literally³, the day he brought it home, I started wrenching⁴ on it. I was 14. I couldn't drive a car, but I wanted to work on a car.

YDSTIE: When he was 16, Bob bought a Beetle of his own.

COOK: You know, I wrenched⁵ on the rades (ph), the engine - everything about it - put interior in it. And then it really started snowballing.

YDSTIE: By the time Bob was 19, he was doing full restorations. His day job was building houses, but he'd come home and work into the night on old VWs. When the housing market busted⁶ in 2009, he bought this little shop just outside Williamsport and started restoring Volkswagens full time. Word of the shop's artistry spread, and now he has a two-year-long list of vintage VW owners waiting for him and his small crew to work their magic. That magic is on display today at Cooker's annual open house. In front of the shop, satisfied clients and VW fans mingle⁷ and admire perfectly⁸ restored cars. One gem⁹ is a midnight-blue 1964 Beetle owned by Georgine Casper. She's from Edison, N.J. And her love of VWs goes back to her teenage years in the late 1970s.

GEORGINE CASPER: I actually had auto¹⁰ mechanics in high school.

YDSTIE: She took it for two years and thought she'd be an auto mechanic. Her boyfriend, Mike - now her husband - had a VW Bug¹¹ back then.

CASPER: I always had my Volkswagens. His brother had one. He had a '65 that - you know, in the winter, when it didn't start, I'd be the one out pushing it. I said, I want a Volkswagen. My mother said, you don't need a Volkswagen. I said, I want a Volkswagen.

YDSTIE: So for $600, she bought this car and another one, a 1969 beetle.

CASPER: The '69 - the floor was so rotted, you could almost put your feet out the bottom. And I brought them home. And she was - she looked at the two of them. And she's like, oh, my God, what did you do? You spend your money on these junks? This is not "Sanford And Son" junkyard. She was yelling. And, every day, she'd come home, and she's like, look at this junk. I'm like, it's not junk because, to me, it wasn't. It was a diamond in the rough.

YDSTIE: Ultimately Georgine who became an office manager, not a mechanic, couldn't do the restoration herself. So she asked Bob and his crew to make her dreams for her car come true. And now Georgine's '64 Beetle shines like a diamond with four chrome wheels as the setting. To make this happen, Bob and his crew take the cars apart and restore them piece by piece either to their original condition or to a modified version. Georgine's is an understated hot rod with a high-powered engine and a roll cage. The other specialty¹² of Cooker's is restoring VW buses like Alvin Zeminsky's. He brought his to the open house from Cherrytown, Pa.

ALVIN ZEMINKSY: I found it in a barn near Frederick, Md., in '95, paid $100 for it.

YDSTIE: Zeminsky says he didn't get around to restoring it because he was busy raising a family.

ZEMINSKY: And then I met Bob and brought it here and had him give it the royal treatment.

YDSTIE: Yeah, no kidding. Describe what it is.

ZEMINSKY: It's a 1964 21-window deluxe¹³ bus. It was the most expensive bus they made. It was, like, $2,600 new in '64. It's kind of turned around big time now.

YDSTIE: So you bought it for a hundred bucks¹⁴. And what's it worth now?

ZEMINSKY: Probably nearing 150,000.

YDSTIE: Wow. In just the past few years, the market for vintage VW buses has skyrocketed. Rusted¹⁵-out buses that people used to pay to have hauled away now sell for $20,000-plus. So what's the big deal? Why are they in such demand? Partly, it's just their great design and simplicity¹⁶. And, partly, it's the stories that go with them, says Zeminksy.

ZEMINSKY: You can't go anywhere without getting stopped and talked to. If you're on the road, people almost crashing into you trying to take pictures. And I got scared because people were, like, driving with one hand and snapping pictures while they were beside me.

YDSTIE: David Abruzzi has a story too. It's attached to his 1960 VW single cab. It's part VW bus and part pickup¹⁷ truck.

DAVID ABRUZZI: It's been in the family since about 1965.

YDSTIE: Abruzzi drove it here from Paw Paw, W.V. The pickup belonged to his grandfather, who used it on his farm in North Dakota in the 1960s.

ABRUZZI: So he died in 1974. It was pulled into a barn, and it sat there until 1987.

YDSTIE: Wow.

ABRUZZI: And I went up and, with the help of a great uncle, got it running and drove it all the way back to New Mexico.

YDSTIE: It sat for 27 years in the New Mexico sun until Abruzzi brought it to West Virginia, where he lives now.

ABRUZZI: People were stopping by my house and saying, if you're going to restore it, you got to take it to Cooker's. And so that's how it wound up here.

YDSTIE: Did you ever see your grandfather using it.

ABRUZZI: I did. Probably one of the most vivid memories was - I probably was about 5 years old. And he was working on a granary, and it was full of sod. And I thought it would be fun to get up in the bed and throw pieces of sod on his back. And I got the first one. He says, if you do that again, you're going to get a whooping¹⁸. And, you know, being a 5-year-old - it's your grandpa - what do you do? You do it again. I do not remember the spanking¹⁹. But I remember my grandma making him apologize to me because it's not the thing a grandpa ever does.

YDSTIE: Cooker's repaired the rusted spots on the old pickup, matching the original faded blue paint that covers 80 percent of the vehicle. It's more valuable with the original paint on it. But for Abruzzi, the truck's monetary²⁰ value isn't the point. What's priceless for him is his grandfather's name and address still stenciled²¹ on the doors - W.E. Skalisky (ph), Battleview, N.D. John Ydstie, NPR News.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: To see photos of the restored VWs, go to npr.org.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 beetle   

n.甲虫，近视眼的人

参考例句：

• A firefly is a type of beetle.萤火虫是一种甲虫。
• He saw a shiny green beetle on a leaf.我看见树叶上有一只闪闪发光的绿色甲虫。

3 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

4 wrenching   

n.修截苗根，苗木铲根（铲根时苗木不起土或部分起土）v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的现在分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛

参考例句：

• China has been through a wrenching series of changes and experiments. 中国经历了一系列艰苦的变革和试验。 来自辞典例句
• A cold gust swept across her exposed breast, wrenching her back to reality. 一股寒气打击她的敞开的胸膛，把她从梦幻的境地中带了回来。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）

5 wrenched   

v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛

参考例句：

• The bag was wrenched from her grasp. 那只包从她紧握的手里被夺了出来。
• He wrenched the book from her hands. 他从她的手中把书拧抢了过来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 busted   

adj. 破产了的，失败了的，被降级的，被逮捕的，被抓到的 动词bust的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• You are so busted! 你被当场逮住了！
• It was money troubles that busted up their marriage. 是金钱纠纷使他们的婚姻破裂了。

7 mingle   

vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往

参考例句：

• If we mingle with the crowd,we should not be noticed.如果我们混在人群中，就不会被注意到。
• Oil will not mingle with water.油和水不相融。

8 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

9 gem   

n.宝石，珠宝；受爱戴的人 [同]jewel

参考例句：

• The gem is beyond my pocket.这颗宝石我可买不起。
• The little gem is worth two thousand dollars.这块小宝石价值两千美元。

10 auto   

n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车

参考例句：

• Don't park your auto here.别把你的汽车停在这儿。
• The auto industry has brought many people to Detroit.汽车工业把许多人吸引到了底特律。

11 bug   

n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器

参考例句：

• There is a bug in the system.系统出了故障。
• The bird caught a bug on the fly.那鸟在飞行中捉住了一只昆虫。

12 specialty   

n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长

参考例句：

• Shell carvings are a specialty of the town.贝雕是该城的特产。
• His specialty is English literature.他的专业是英国文学。

13 deluxe   

adj.华美的，豪华的，高级的

参考例句：

• This system puts the top hotels in a special deluxe category.这种分类法把最高级的旅馆列为特殊豪华级。
• I liked the deluxe edition,but I could afford only a second best.我喜欢精装版，但我只买得起一本稍差一点的。

14 bucks   

n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃

参考例句：

• They cost ten bucks. 这些值十元钱。
• They are hunting for bucks. 他们正在猎雄兔。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 rusted   

v.（使）生锈( rust的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I can't get these screws out; they've rusted in. 我无法取出这些螺丝，它们都锈住了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• My bike has rusted and needs oil. 我的自行车生锈了，需要上油。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 simplicity   

n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯

参考例句：

• She dressed with elegant simplicity.她穿着朴素高雅。
• The beauty of this plan is its simplicity.简明扼要是这个计划的一大特点。

17 pickup   

n.拾起，获得

参考例句：

• I would love to trade this car for a pickup truck.我愿意用这辆汽车换一辆小型轻便卡车。||The luck guy is a choice pickup for the girls.那位幸运的男孩是女孩子们想勾搭上的人。

18 whooping   

发嗬嗬声的，发咳声的

参考例句：

• Whooping cough is very prevalent just now. 百日咳正在广泛流行。
• Have you had your child vaccinated against whooping cough? 你给你的孩子打过百日咳疫苗了吗？

19 spanking   

adj.强烈的，疾行的；n.打屁股

参考例句：

• The boat is spanking along on the river.船在小河疾驶。
• He heard a horse approaching at a spanking trot.他听到一匹马正在疾步驰近。

20 monetary   

adj.货币的，钱的；通货的；金融的；财政的

参考例句：

• The monetary system of some countries used to be based on gold.过去有些国家的货币制度是金本位制的。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

21 stenciled   

v.用模板印（文字或图案）( stencil的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• To transfer(a stenciled design) with pounce. 以印花粉印用印花粉末转印（镂空模板花样） 来自互联网
• L: Cardboard cartons, with stenciled shipping marks. 李：刷有抬头的硬纸板箱。 来自互联网