JLT
Active member
Now that this old thread has been revived, I thought I'd add my story:
When I was researching my book "On the Bus" I was able to contact both the families of the previous owners of George, my present bus. But here's a post-script.
I bought the bus from a gentleman named Jack McNeil in Pacific Palisades, California and picked it up from his son Marc in Grenada Hills. Then I visited Jack a few months later in Pacific Palisades and heard him tell stories of his experiences with the bus.
End of story? Hardly. A couple of months ago, a devastating fire burned most of Pacific Palisades to the ground. I knew that Jack had died a few years earlier, but I wondered if his wife was still there, and how she fared. I still had contact information for Marc, so I dropped him an email. He responded that his mother had died a few years ago, and they'd sold the house to a developer after clearing out all their personal effects. He sent me a picture of the house after the fire. Like the rest of the neighborhood, it had burned to the ground. Nothing left but a brick chimney and some ironwork or concrete fencing.
But here's the thing: He mentioned that while cleaning out his Dad's garage, he found what he called "jumper seat" that he remembered belonging to the bus. It turned out to be the stool that fit between the icebox and the rear-facing passenger seat in the Westfalia camper set-up. Did I want it? These things go for as much as $400 (about the same in quid, I think), and he was offering it to me for free! When I told him, he said that the cost didn't want anything for it... it belonged with the bus.
I happened to be at Buses By the Bridge in Arizona that weekend, so it was a detour of only a couple of hours to drive to Grenada Hills to pick it up on my way back home in Sacramento. Marc had a great time re-uniting with his old frfend, in which he'd spent many happy hours in his youth, and had his wife take many pictures of us standing in front of it. So now I have my own souvenir of the Pacific Palisades fire, from which the stool had escaped by only a couple of years.
When I was researching my book "On the Bus" I was able to contact both the families of the previous owners of George, my present bus. But here's a post-script.
I bought the bus from a gentleman named Jack McNeil in Pacific Palisades, California and picked it up from his son Marc in Grenada Hills. Then I visited Jack a few months later in Pacific Palisades and heard him tell stories of his experiences with the bus.
End of story? Hardly. A couple of months ago, a devastating fire burned most of Pacific Palisades to the ground. I knew that Jack had died a few years earlier, but I wondered if his wife was still there, and how she fared. I still had contact information for Marc, so I dropped him an email. He responded that his mother had died a few years ago, and they'd sold the house to a developer after clearing out all their personal effects. He sent me a picture of the house after the fire. Like the rest of the neighborhood, it had burned to the ground. Nothing left but a brick chimney and some ironwork or concrete fencing.
But here's the thing: He mentioned that while cleaning out his Dad's garage, he found what he called "jumper seat" that he remembered belonging to the bus. It turned out to be the stool that fit between the icebox and the rear-facing passenger seat in the Westfalia camper set-up. Did I want it? These things go for as much as $400 (about the same in quid, I think), and he was offering it to me for free! When I told him, he said that the cost didn't want anything for it... it belonged with the bus.
I happened to be at Buses By the Bridge in Arizona that weekend, so it was a detour of only a couple of hours to drive to Grenada Hills to pick it up on my way back home in Sacramento. Marc had a great time re-uniting with his old frfend, in which he'd spent many happy hours in his youth, and had his wife take many pictures of us standing in front of it. So now I have my own souvenir of the Pacific Palisades fire, from which the stool had escaped by only a couple of years.
ha. Me being me though I thought hmm ok this is got to be bogus maybe but he did actually send me a pic of my bus in the early 80's with his family on holiday and then she was dark Green with a white band on the waistline and it was her number plate. He said they had made many good memories in her as a family. It was kind of surreal but really cool and he was made up that she has been completely restored and fit and I said she will always be very well looked after for as long as I'm around. 
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