The man and his old trusty bug

Alex Coolman

Allan Beek has driven half a million miles, and he’s still in

Newport Beach. The outspoken 72-year-old environmentalist and gadfly

watched the dial of the odometer on his 1961 Volkswagen Bug spin around

to the 500,000 mile mark Wednesday on a trip down to the launch point of

the Balboa Island ferry.

Beek says he racked up most of the miles just tooling around town and

commuting to a job in Anaheim. And, along the way he and his car have

managed to have a few adventures.

‘The best stories about it you can’t print,’ Beek joked as he polished

up the car before the ceremonial drive.

The canary yellow Bug once rumbled across the dike at Upper Newport

Bay, before the floods washed it away in 1969.

That color, at times, is a little more than Beek can handle.

“This really isn’t the color I wanted,” he said. “I’m not that

aggressive.”

Still, he knows he’s stuck with it. When it was time to get the paint

redone, he had his choice: the inexpensive job, or one that would last.

“I’ll take the best,” Beek said he told the auto painter. “We’re going

to be together until one of us dies.”

The classic car has its original steering wheel and dashboard

controls, though its engine, fenders, running board and windshield have

all been replaced.

“When the floorboards go through under my feet, then I’m afraid I’ll

have to give up,’ Beek said.

The 500,000 miles mean more to Beek than they might to some people

because he is an aficionado of numbers, continually fascinated by chance

arrangements of the digits in his life. The license of the Bug reads

‘1234ETC,’ and Beek is happy to supply further numerological tidbits

about his history.

“My eighteenth birthday was on 1/23/45,” he points out.

Beek has a friend, whom he first encountered when he was a teaching

assistant at UC Irvine, that he always has dinner with when the day,

month and year share the same digit. Their first encounter took place on

6/6/66 and has continued through the decades. Their next date is set for

1/1/01.

A head for figures comes in handy when telling the story of all the

Newport history Beek has witnessed. His father, Joseph Beek, who

originally gave him the Bug, was also the man who started the Balboa

Island ferry. Beek has memories of playing around on the sandbars of the

bay when it was still shallow and remembers the days when the dredger

transferred the sand from the bay bottom to the beach at the peninsula.

“I was in fourth grade,” Beek said, and then stopped to consider the

accuracy of that statement, his eyes rolling upward skeptically.

“Let’s see if I’ve got that right,” he said. “I’ve got to do the

math.”