Some of the greatest memories of my life happened inside of the conversion van I owned when I was seventeen years old. I bought the conversion van from a mechanic who worked at a used car dealership in a small town. At the time I didn't have enough money to reach his asking price, so I closed the deal by offering him one of the guitars I had owned at the time. He agreed, and I drove away as happily as could be in my bright green conversion van.
Because of the amount of space and countless gadgets that were included, my conversion van became the daily driver for my group of friends. There were captains chairs in both the front and middle rows of the van, but we quickly removed the middle seats to make room for as many people to squeeze in as possible. A television set was included with the van, so we would drive around casually watching shows and movies until more friends arrived to liven up our mobile party.
Music was always included in our nightly events, so I had installed a CD player that included a remote control. This gave passengers in the back the ability to select the music they wanted to hear from the comfort of the couch-like seat that was always fought over by my friends. The back seat could be folded down to a bed, so late nights and camping were always considered on the weekends.
Because I played in a few bands at the time, my conversion van was always used to transport our equipment and our friends. The ability to remove the seats from the van quickly and easily enabled us to make more than enough space for everybody, so playing shows out of town often meant that my entire group of friends were going to be there to watch. The overall size of the van was more than enough to fit all of our music equipment and most of my friends.
One of the most coveted places to sit in my conversion van was the passenger's seat in the front row. We determined who was worthy to sit there based on who did the most work moving our equipment into the van. This led to a healthy competition where friends and band-mates would race to load up our equipment as quickly as possible, which turned out to be quite an efficient way to solve the front-seat debate and load up our equipment in a timely manner.
Looking back on those days, it's clear to me that my conversion van served as more than a means of transportation. This van transported my equipment, my friends, and my memories.