Rolls-Royce love, Part 1

The unmistakable RR grill.

An iron-jawed bug bit him.

On a bright sunny day in Los Gatos, he was walking along with his friend Ladd Brown when a Rolls-Royce rounded a corner.  There was no coach on the car, just a chassis. The driver was sitting at the wheel on a wooden box. But even with no body on the car, he knew a Rolls when he saw one.

There was beauty just in the chassis. He asked Ladd if he knew the driver. Ladd had answered in the negative, but commented that whoever he was, he for sure had a great set of wheels in these Depression days.

The Rolls-Royce grill has glittered in his mind ever since, he remembered later. After all the schooling, the war, and more study, he settled down to enjoy the postwar dream with his wife and young family. On his trips home from the office, rolling past Riverside’s old Chinatown, he began to take notice of an old Rolls-Royce occasionally parked at the curb.

It was rather tatty, as the Brits would say, with little paint and a torn fender. But it looked like it was all there. He decided to go on the property and talk to the owner.

George Wong in the 1960s.

He knew it would be George Wong, because his name recently had been in the newspaper. Wong was the last denizen of the Chinese community in town and something of a character.  Whether you called it a junkyard or the remnants of Chinatown, everyone knew about George.

He got out of his car and hadn't walked very far before George Wong was beside his elbow asking him what he wanted, in not very easily understood English. After a few more words he asked his name. There was a pause. Then George's attitude changed slightly from gruff to reasonable. George instructed him to move his car, which he did, and after climbing out noticed he was standing between a falling-down restaurant and a bamboo patch with a sea of rusty cars beyond. Chickens pecked here and there.

Once again, George asked him his name. Then George blurted out, "I knew your father."

Site of George's property.
"Wong Way" was named for him
in 1961. 

This was incredible. His father had passed away in 1925 in Hollywood. How would they have met? But then George pinched his forehead and sawed a hand across back and forth as if playing a cello.

It had to be true. His father had played cello in a string quartet. He recalled that when his father was concentrating on the music, a vein would stand up on his forehead.

George said again, "I knew him."

Well, after this he knew he would get along famously with George Wong.

Now, about that Rolls-Royce.

To be continued.