Bitten by and smitten with the green bug

This "green bug" in my title isn't a sustainable one, though this little green bug's appeal has certainly been sustained for years and years. Forty-seven, in fact.

The photo of this Volkswagen Beetle makes me happy. When I look at this picture, many things come to mind. (Though not a thousand words.)

For starters, I remember the home tour on which I saw cute-yet-classy automobile, a pleasant tour I took with friends Lorie and Laurie on an April afternoon. The car's plates make me think of my dad, who was born in 1952. Next, my mind jumps to my father's dislike of German-made cars - he always says they have a certain smell about them. (When I was younger, I thought he was nuts. Nowadays, though, I do sense a distinct scent when riding in my friends' newer and stylish VW's...)

This photo also mixes the past and present in a way that's anachronistic, especially given the sepia tone that masks the car's old-timin' sage coloring and the hues of surrounding objects. Take the old VW with modern-day Arizona plates, the newer Dodge Durango, the 60's-style homes, the tall trees of Tuscany aligned by height like students, the sprinkling of the palms so associated with Phoenix, Palm Springs and the beaches of L.A. Ultimately, I think this photo to be a metaphor for life ~ a mix of space and time. For good or ill, there can be no undoing of the overlap, these connections we experience... and isn't that kind of neat?

I guess such connections - and the fact that this little Beetle showcases human potential for sustaining and caring for something in superlative fashion - offer reason to consider how we live while providing hope that we can figure out how to sustain and care for our common address (the earth). Slug bug!  ~ A.F.