When I was in my early 20s I hooked up with a few couples (and Jimmy) that allowed me to experience a mini 60s of my own. Being aged hippies themselves, they sparked an interest in me of times past and the freedom of that time, or at least the illusion of it. One thing that fascinated me was the book, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” by Tom Wolfe. This tells the story of the Merry Pranksters. They were basically a bunch of hippies dropping acid and driving across the US in the 60s and getting up to all manner of hi jinks. More interesting to me was the school bus that they drove around in; they had painted rainbows, designs, flowers all over it…like the Partridge Family bus but on steroids. The idea fascinated me, so of course being artistically driven in all things, I decided that I had to do it myself. So in the summer of 1991 I spray painted my 1984 Subaru Station Wagon with 20 cans of school bus yellow: as a canvas. Then I mixed different colors of Rustoleum so that I had all the basic colors. With a lot of ideas and copies of some old 60s artwork I set about to outdo the Merry Pranksters. It took me a few months, but I did it, and it was fantastic. I drove up to New York many times and down to Florida in it. People would honk at me, wave and of course stop me in parking lots. I even got comments written down and left under the windshield wiper. Everyone loved it. I even did the main drag on cruise night in Lansdale many times.
Unfortunately, time marched on and I needed a new car, so I painted it black and traded it in for a 1991 Subaru. I’m sure it was crushed into a cube shortly thereafter…so it goes.
