My name is Sara McCutchen '96 and this is my Southwestern story.

It was freshman year on Third Kurth. We had many adventures that year - Kool-aid in the showers, short sheeting the beds, stealing Second Kurth’s microwave - but the most memorable had to be the day my 1968 VW Beetle had a mishap.

My good friend, Amy Hall Kilbride '96, came to Southwestern our first year from St. Louis, Mo. She had no car that year, and in the late spring, after pledging our sorority, she often borrowed mine to get to the other side of campus. One afternoon, Amy asked if she could borrow my keys to run to Moody-Shearn to deliver something. Of course I obliged. Amy took off down the stairwell and I continued whatever I was doing.

Six or seven minutes later, I heard faint screams growing closer and closer, eventually bursting through my door. Before I could ask what happened, I got some discombobulated story about “the gears being messed up… and the car is… and crashed… and into the building and…!” I ran down the stairs with Amy in tow. I arrived outside to find my little blue Bug’s front fender and the trunk of the car (yes, it was in the front) crumpled like a Diet Coke can…INTO Kurth!

You see, my first car was only one of a few hundred produced. A semi-automatic transmission meant the driver still had to shift but didn’t have to use a clutch. There were only four gears - reverse, low, first and second. While they were rare, these vehicles were not as popular as the folks at VW had hoped. You must understand that where, in a typical manual transmission, first gear usually is, in my car, that was reverse. And where fourth gear normally resided, well, that was second. So Amy, forgetting the rules of driving this car, put the car in what she believed to be reverse (but was second), turned around to back out, stepped on the gas and drove the car forward into the dormitory.

I stared at the mess that was my car. I glanced upwards to see the residents above gawking down in amazement. I wondered how I would tell my dad. I could hear him say, “If Amy Hall wants to drive your car, she can pay your insurance.” Rather than face my father’s look and hear his disappointment, Amy and I decided to find a local collision repair shop and see if we could mend the wound with our spare change. Down University Avenue we went—and just before the San Gabriel bridge, we found our place. The nice gentleman at the shop took out the biggest rubber mallet I had ever seen, opened the trunk, and beat the interior until the entire fender and hood popped right back out, as if nothing had ever happened. She paid the man $75, and we went back to campus.

Amy Hall returned to Southwestern the next fall with her own car - a brand new Jeep. You can ask her how I got her back.