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Beetle's return means slap-happy revival of 'Punch Buggy'
Tuesday, March 02, 1999 By Bob Batz Jr., Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The return of the Volkswagen Beetle means a lot of us could be cruising for some bruisings.
Beware of the game "Punch Buggy."
My own violent introduction occurred last spring, on an otherwise pleasant stroll around Washington's Landing with three friends. Before I even noticed a silver VW Bug beetling past, two of the friends - women in their 20s - saw it and simultaneously punched each other in the arms, screaming, "PUNCH BUGGY NO RETURN!" and then giggling breathlessly.
I was dumbfounded.
"Punch Buggy," they explained, means trying to be the first to see a VW Bug and slugging the other person's arm; the "no return" part officially precludes the other person from slugging back.
My 20-something guy friend, from near Chicago, knew this. But like the women - from Canada and New York City - he has no idea of its origins. How could I not know about it, after 35 years of life and after having owned several VWs myself?
Having since absorbed, as well as dished out, more punches than Mike Tyson, I decided to research this phenomenon. It wasn't hard to know where to start.
Of course there are Punch Buggy Internet sites, including one - http://www.punch-buggy.com/ - that hawks a book titled, "The Complete Rules of Punch Buggy."
Authors Michael Lockhart and Ian Finlayson were out of their Penticton, British Columbia office, so I couldn't ask the hard-hitting questions like, "You want $12.95?" But I could peruse the table of contents, which includes sections on "Distraction Techniques," "New Attacks for the Millennium" and "Adult-Only Play."
There are, I found in perusing the Web, innumerable variations on the name and parameters of the game, which is known in some quarters as "Slug Bug" (or the more formal "Slug Bug Beetle Bug"), "Slap Bug," even "Hug Bug" and "Love Bug," where the punch is eschewed for a kiss.
(May I humbly suggest a drinking game variation, to be played while sitting at a roadside bar, called "Punch Drunk.")
Otherwise, I swear, I'm not making any of this up.
"That used to be big way back in the early '60s," says Bob Bordonaro, who owns the region's second oldest VW dealer, Hillcrest Volkswagen Inc. in Lower Burrell.
When he started selling them there back in November 1962, Bugs were just beginning to proliferate on the nation's roadways.
So was this weird driving game.
"The whole idea is keep your eye on the road and be the first one to see it," says Bordonaro. Like some of his friends, his preference was to make love, not war, so he'd try for the fat lips of his girlfriends. "It's the same concept. 'Oh, a Beetle, give me a kiss.' " He laughs. "If they were dumb enough, you got a lot of kisses."
He's seen variations like awarding extra points for certain colors of Bugs ("You can make up whatever you want") but hadn't seen the game for years until a recent TV show, of all things.
Could "Punch Buggy" be making a re-run?
"I see so many people punching each other out when I drive by," says graphic designer Bernard Uy, who owns a silver one. His blue Beetle-driving friend Chris Pacione concurs: "Every time I'm driving around, I see these kids plowing into each other. ... What's going on? This car is inciting violence."
"When I drive my old Beetle down the street, they still do it," says Terry Shuler, a Wilkinsburg-born VW enthusiast and writer who now lives in Portage, Cambria County. He's soon to publish his third VW book.
He wrote "The Origin and Evolution of the Volkswagen Beetle," but he doesn't know the origin of Punch Buggy. "It always amazes me that it's still there. To me, it's like an adolescent joke that passes down from class to class ... from sibling to sibling."
Thirty-eight-year-old Dave Hansen played Slug Bug with his siblings, and now his kids pass it back and forth.
"I don't know if you want to encourage it. I'm a dad who has to scream at the back seat enough," says Hansen of the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, where he's founded the LOVE-ly acronymed League of Volkswagen Enthusiasts.
He says that there are so many New Beetles out there that, yes, people are getting punchy. The appeal of the game is a visceral one: "Kids love punching each other. Any excuse will do."
Paul Springob, co-founder of the 100-member Three Rivers Volkswagen Club, says he thinks the game is being reborn. "It seems like even little kids today know about it."
But nobody seems to know how it was born in the first place.
"I don't think anyone can tell you that," says VW repairman Cephus Acolatse, who promotes a big VW show and race in Atco, N.J., called "Punch Buggy." (This year's is set for July 11.)
He came up with the name for the event, which he started 13 years ago, after watching kids passing his shop, looking at all the Bugs, "and going, 'Punch buggy! Punch buggy! Punch buggy!' "
In his circles, that's long been a nickname for the cars, and he's heard theories about that from different people. "The best I got out of them, it looks like someone smashed the front end."
Who knows.
But if you don't want to get smashed yourself, do what you learned in high school: Drive defensively, and stay alert, especially for VW Bugs.
Then, lead with your left ...
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