Meeting "Victoria" (By Email)

In mid-October I came home from work. My wife checked our phone message and there was one from Steve D. I expected that he was phoning to explain that he had finally taken delivery of Duncan, and that I was welcomed to come over to his house and help him. Instead he said he had received a call from a guy named Ian in the province's capital city in Victoria, also on Vancouver Island, about another van. He said that Ian knew of the owner. He asked me if I was interested in getting it, and I said yes. Steve then gave me the guy's number. He also warned me that it had been modified into a camper and that "it might not have the original engine in it". I didn't care. I wanted it. That night I phoned Ian and he sent me some photos. He also gave me the contact information of the owner, a guy named Sean. I immediately contacted Sean and offered him his asking price, $500. We agreed that I would pick it up from a storage yard in Victoria on October 23 and that he, on the other hand, would collect the money at the same time from my wife in downtown Vancouver while he was visiting on business. Deal done, I started to have regrets -- the photos looked nasty, and I wasn't sure that I was capable of pulling off a restoration on something so obviously corrupted. Nevertheless, I decided to name the new van "Victoria" after the city it was found in, just as Duncan had been named. I posted that night on Yahoo! Groups that I had found another early van, my second in three months. I sensed that "Mike" of the MCJTV group was going to buy a ticket to Vancouver Island to look for additonal J vans. "Don't bother," I thought to myself. "There aren't anymore in the country."