In 1975 I bought a new car, my first. It was a Toyota station wagon, standard transmission. It was a pukey mustard color. I ordered it brand new thanks to a loan from my grandmother (with interest). The only problem was that I couldn't drive it! I actually had to get a ride to and from work every day (with a cute guy who worked at the Brown-Boveri Corporation semiconductor plant with me named Walter Witt. He had long curly hair). Finally, I decided it was ridiculous to have this brand new car sitting in the driveway. The big day was when we went to the Baltimore Kennel Club show, which was about 175 miles from our house. We had to take the New Jersey Turnpike, which was a toll road. David said that would be good for me. He would drive until we reached the turnpike, then I would take over. That way I could get the feel of the car before I had to stop and start for the tollbooths. The fact that we had to leave in the middle of the night wasn't really the problem, it was the damned shifting. It sounded like a good plan.
Everything went smoothly until the first tollbooth. Stopping was easy. Foot on the clutch and glide in. But starting again was a little harder. Jolting jumps, grinding gears, it was pretty ugly. And the tollbooth attendant was really very nice, he hardly laughed at all. By the time we reached Baltimore it was dawn, and I was a pro.
We arrived at the showgrounds. I was still driving and doing quite well negotiating the streets and turns, even when I had to shift. We had to park in the back to unload all our equipment (crates, dolly, dogs, grooming bag, etc.) As I was pulling into a parking spot, I was distracted by an Afghan Hound walking by. I suddenly heard a yell and quickly turned back around.
To my utter shock, standing in front of me with his hands on the hood of my now stopped car was - John Boy Walton!John Boy? What? He was standing in about one foot of space between my bumper and a van in front of me. He started waving his hands at me!
He even had that mole on his face. But it couldn't be John Boy, could it?
I leaned out the window and told him how sorry I was, was he okay, all those platitudes. But my head was spinning.
When we got all set up inside and had the dogs settled down into their crates, we went to get some coffee. While we were walking back we heard two women talking:Did you see who's here?
No, who?
Richard Thomas, you know, John Boy on the Waltons.
What? Why is he here?
His dad is a judge, they have English Toy Spaniels.
No kidding? Let's go watch when the judging starts.
So it WAS true, it WAS him...
Like everyone else at the show, we went to ringside to watch Richard Thomas' dad (Richard Thomas) judge. As we walked up, someone wearing a plaid shirt and holding a spray bottle of water suddenly threw up his arms and said with a mock show of horror, "No no! Please don't kill me!" and made a face at me. Thank goodness he had a good sense of humor.
I'm so glad I didn't kill John Boy. It would have been the final
