A few years ago, I had a couple of roommates that drove vans. When I was dating my wife, Hannah, she had an album of some kind-of funk house music. It had this wah-chika-wah-chika-wah beat. You know, caper music. It’s the music that plays in a heist movie, where they montage scenes of the crew practicing their plan to break into some secure building. And when they’re ready, they all jump into a van. I would get into my roommate’s van, and that caper music would be going through my head.
We would take the van to pick up a new dishwasher, or help someone move, and it wasn’t just a normal drive, it was an adventure. To drive a big container of a vehicle like that takes some responsibility, you had to be doing something worth doing. You’re not just going to the grocery store, or driving to a job where you sit in a cubicle. There are hippie vans, junker work vans, spy vans. The A-team drove a van. The theme music to the A-team TV show, now that’s some van music.
A couple of months ago, I bought a Chevy cargo van to use to haul my work to art shows. This van replaced a Ford passenger van, named Mongo by the previous owner. The new van needed a name, so we decided on Charlie. Or, in day to day usage, Chuck, as in the Chuck-Wagon; my bring-home-the-bacon friend. May the adventures of Chuck begin.
