College students, hippies and Mexican cabbies have something in common.
Not that they haven't always shared certain similarities: long hair, low wages and the overwhelming urge to dodge "the Man".
But now they share a common grief in the passing of the Love Bug as the Volkswagon Beetle was officially retired recently. Sure, VW has the "New Beetle" to push on the world but the car looks sleek, sexy and air-conditioned. All are qualities that the original Love Bug didn't have and is part of the reason people loved the cars.
Even Disney loved the car and made it famous in a series of wacky films, yes wacky, starring the car Herbie.
Take a minute and think back over your life. No, skip that part and that one and think way back to the days when simple car games were still fun. Go even further back to the first time your older brother or sister taught you the beloved game "Slug Bug."
Ah, the memories. Ah, the bruises.
For the sad souls that have no idea what I'm talking about, the game was very simple. Passengers in a car must keep a lookout for VW Beetles and once one is spotted yell, "slug bug" and viciously punch the nearest arm. The object of the game is to be the first person to spot the car and thus avoid being punched.
It seems like a simple concept but it could become quite painful, I assure you. I come from Flagstaff; a town filled with college students, hippies and Mexican cabbies and they all love to drive the Beetle. The streets were filled with the cars and therefore my parent's van was filled with screams and punches.
Eventually, my cousins and I adapted the game to include the color of the vehicle. You had to not only say "slug bug," but also add the color: "slug bug, yellow" for instance. If you failed to say the color, each person in the car was awarded a free punch.
Needless to say, the game never ended peacefully. Punches were never soft and players took sadistic pleasure in leaving bruises on friend's arms. All in the name of, ironically, the Love Bug.
As the years went on, the game started becoming a little more difficult to play as the Beetle started vanishing from the street. People were apparently getting tired of the small space, loud engine, dangerous engine location and all the other problems that came from owning a Beetle.
Emission standards in America drove the Beetle out of production in 1977, but it survived on the foreign market for years. It was especially well received in Mexico where it became a cultural icon by the Spanish nickname "vocho." Taxi companies began using the vehicle and eventually, robbers capitalized on the icon. They would pose as a taxi and get passengers into the back seat and take advantage of the cramped space to trap and rob them.
Mexico finally made moves to stop this trend, requiring all taxicabs to have four doors, effectively ending the run of the "vocho" in Mexico.
So a legend dies.
Slowly the Beetle will end up in junkyards around the world and people will forget about the car. The magnetic personality of the vehicle may keep it in some collector's garages but other than that, the car will disappear.
So will the game "slug bug" which should make me happy to know that future children won't have to endure countless bruises on their arms. But for some reason, I'm not happy at all and although I haven't played the game in years, I think I'm going to keep a lookout for the car here in Tempe.
After all, we have a pretty good collection of college students, hippies and Mexican cabbies.
Cameron Eickmeyer is a journalism senior. Reach him at cameron.eickmeyer@asu.edu.
