Tangerine Marine and The Ghi-Ghi car

I so wish I had pictures to share! Bare with me here as I tell THE. Whole. Story. Not just the little bit that inspired the story.

When we lived in Virginia Beach, Va my Marine bought himself a Volkswagen Karma-gia. It looks like a Volkswagen bug that has been flatten a little bit. It was orange, hence the nick name, Tangerine Marine. He looked so cool in his cammies driving to work in this car. It needed much work. It is very hard to find a car on the East coast that isn't full of rust. There were huge holes in the floor pans. Then we got got orders to the Drill Field in South Carolina. Do you know how much it rains in SC?! By this time there were no floor boards in the car. If you didn't take the corners slow you'd be wearing the mud puddles. Ask me how I know! Kevin was the one that coined the car Ghi-ghi car. One of those cute kid things that stuck.

My favorite story about the car and my Marine happened while he was a Drill Instructor. He was at work and I found this huge balloon. No kidding it was as big as his car. So, I bought it and took it to tie to the mirror of his car. What I didn't know until he got home LATE that night was he was actually outside with his recruits while I was putting the balloon on his car. He had his boots lined up facing the parking lot and his back was to me. He was madder than a hornet at them for something and was giving them heck. Well, they all knew what car he drove and they could see what I was doing. They are all trying not to laugh. Finally I got the job done and left. At that point one of his peers came to him and told him to go take care of his car. It was great.

Then we got orders to come back to 29 Palms and the ghi-ghi car had to be sold. We sold it to another Marine and handed him the floor pans that were bought but never put in the car. Over the years Michael has wandered about the car and the 'kid' that bought it.

The last couple months he has been admiring another karma ghia in the neighborhood. The other day the owner was out in the yard and we stopped so Michael could talk cars. Michael told this guy that he had and sold an orange Karma-ghia. The guy asked what he sold it for. After Michael's answer he said wait right here. He went in and came out of his house with his wife. He was the one who bought our car!! What I small world it is. He isn't a kid any more. Maybe you have to be a military family to understand the uniqueness of this story. We were all just amazed. He resold the car shortly after he bought it. Like I said it needed a lot of work.