Sep 21 2008
Learning from History
My grandparents Doty lived across the street from Gene Autry, the cowboy entertainer. Whenever we visited the grandparent’s house in Studio City, California, we wondered what was behind the gate with the California Angel’s “A” on it. Because, as a baseball fan, what we really wanted was for Gene (who we didn’t even know) to take us to an Angles game, let us play on the field, let us take a stint at being bat boy, or just introduce us to the players.
One year, it happened. Gene Autry gave us (i.e., Grandma and Grandpa Doty who actually knew Gene) tickets for his box seat. I was a boy of eleven or twelve, and, as one might imagine, very excited. Staci and Christian were already in Studio City visiting grandpa and grandma. The rest of us (I can’t remember if Greg was born yet) were going to take the Gold/Bronze Toyota Van from our Mesa, Arizona house out to California in time to go to the game.
Alas, as we packed the back of the van sitting in the garage, which had it’s hatch opened, Andrew pushed the garage door button. The closing garage door turned the hatch from a “/” into a “^”. The hatch would no longer close. We didn’t make it to the game (Christian and Staci did). Gene never gave us his box seats again.
(Not our actual van)
Yesterday, after getting Grace out of the back of the car and juggling both Ava and a bag of goodies from Home Depot, I closed the garage door on the open hatch of our Honda Pilot. Right after pushing the button, I heard an an awful crunching sound. I turned around, recognized the situation, and reversed the garage door. Aside from a few little scratches that Grace kindly pointed out this morning, the hatch thankfully closes fine. Apparently, if you want to turn your hatch into a “^”, you have to be leaving to do something really important.
P.S.
Am I really old enough to have once thought that van was cool?
I can’t remember ever sitting in box seats…you really would have appreciated it more than me.
That Toyota space mobile was MY first car, so I loved it. Or I loved finally having a car. I guess I didn’t get all that much say since it was a stick shift (I would never agree to that now), but it was pretty snazzy back then. Engine access was under the driver seat and totally inconvenient back in the days that dad changed the oil himself. No Jiffy Lubes in those days.
Andrew was a little bugger back then. Still can’t figure out how he reached the button to close the garage door. Did S&C end up going to the game with Gpa?
It wasn’t box seats, it was right behind the 3rd base dugout. We did go and it was great.
I still remember when Mom and Dad brought the car home for the first time. We were so excited for the space mobile.