When my boss asked me several weeks ago to collect Volkswagen stories from readers, I didn’t know what to expect.

Response has been, in a word, amazing.

I’ve gotten more than 100 e-mails and countless telephone calls and snail-mail letters from enthusiastic VW owners. (See many of them online at timesfreepress.com.)

Nearly everybody in Chattanooga over age 40, it seems, has a bit of personal history involving a Volkswagen Beetle or Bus.

One of the readers who wrote to me about a VW memory was my friend, Tammy Burns, a teacher at Baylor School. Tammy recalls fondly the Volkswagen Beetle she drove during her college years in the 1970s.

“I can remember the sponginess of the steering wheel under my palms,” she wrote in an e-mail, “and the smell of English Leather that stewed in the upholstery for days after boys rode in it.”

Tammy’s VW story doesn’t end, like most of the others, shrink-wrapped in nostalgia.

No, Tammy has come full circle. Two months ago — before the VW assembly-plant announcement — she traded a nearly new Jaguar for a Volkswagen New Beetle. (If you appreciate cars, the proper reaction is, “Whoa, Tammy!”)

I think Tammy’s story is a good parable for the Volkswagen of America executives, who must, even now, be wondering what sort of pixie dust they can sprinkle out at Enterprise South to rekindle America’s love affair with VWs.

I asked Tammy to join me for lunch one day last week so I could pick her brain about this VW thing. You should know, Tammy is a complete free spirit. She has a way of cutting her eyes, ducking her chin and laughing through her nose that can charm almost anyone.

Tammy has fought a lifelong battle against the tyranny of predictable thinking. It is like her to trade a Jaguar for a New Beetle just because it would make a whopper of a good story.

Over a bowl of tomato soup at Southern Star restaurant on Broad Street, Tammy explained that the Jaguar was a 50th birthday gift.

“Mark, it was my dream car,” she said. “I always thought when I got a Jaguar, that’s when I’d know I’d arrived. I thought, ‘This is the last car I’ll ever have.’”

Like many baby boomers, Tammy is caught in the whole hippie-yuppie paradox. Many of us spent middle adulthood seeking status through possessions, and now — as we find ourselves north of 50 — we just want to cut loose and have fun.

After a time, the Jaguar became too much of conversation piece, Tammy said. People would mutter things like, “I didn’t know you drove a Jaguar?” as if it were a character trait.

No, no, no, Tammy thought, a car should reflect one’s personality, not define it.

That’s when she had her VW Beetle vision. She saw herself in a New Beetle convertible. It would be easy on gas and long on fun, she decided. Plus, her black Labrador, Maddy, would love it.

“When I told (daughter) Shelly that I wanted a new car — something more playful — she did this,” Tammy explained, leaning over and massaging the bridge of her nose, as if trying to calm a raging headache.

“Mom,” Shelly said, “I don’t ever want to hear you say that again.”

But Tammy is rarely thwarted once she makes up her mind. Even after the cruel reality of luxury-car depreciation was presented to her on an offer sheet by a VW salesman, Tammy didn’t give up on her dream. Her husband, Jim, figured out a way to make the switch work, and now Tammy is driving a cream-colored New Beetle with a convertible top.

“Let’s go,” she said after lunch as we hopped in the VW for a spin. “It’ll change your world.”

As we rode down Market Street, her hair whipping in the wind, Tammy seemed happier than I’ve ever seen her.

It was as if she were in college again with “Crocodile Rock” blaring from the 8-track. And, now, at age 53, good vibrations seemed not only possible for her again, but absolutely inevitable.

Mark Kennedy will sign copies of his new book, “Life Stories,” on Saturday, Aug. 16, from 1-3 p.m. at Wild Hare Books on Signal Mountain.

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