Old Cars & Saturday Mornings
If you’ve passed the parking lot behind Main Street Cafe on State Street near the intersection with Main on a Saturday morning, you’ve probably noticed 10-20 unusual cars parked there.
Some of the cars are so old that few were alive when they were built. Some are so unusual that most people will never see them outside of automotive history books or an auto show.
Those who own these cars meet just about every weekend for what’s become a tradition in the downtown village. The group, started with a casual conversation at the Los Altos Fall Festival’s annual car show nearly 10 years ago.
The only objective was to share their love of classic, collectible and just plain unusual cars – of which there seemed to be a great many around Los Altos. Someone had noticed that the back parking lot of the cafe (which sits under the Town Crier’s office) was usually empty early Saturday mornings, and the shop had an area in back where they could meet over coffee and share information about the cars.
To wander through the parking lot on any given Saturday is to see the widest range of automobiles that anyone can imagine. Sometimes the vintage can span 100 years … you might stumble upon a 1904 Franklin with its air-cooled two-cylinder engine and crank starter at one end of the lot, a new Dodge Viper or Ferrari super car at the other.
One of the regulars has driven his Peel, the smallest road-legal four-wheel production car ever built and roughly one-quarter the length of one of the Packards or Cadillacs that frequently makes an appearance.
And as everyone insists, this is not a contest among show vehicles. One of the regular cars is a Pierce-Arrow from the mid-1930s, jointly owned by three of the regulars, that won its class at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the most prestigious automobile show in the country. But one of its owners might just as likely drive up in a running, but completely un-restored, Jaguar XK120, parking it next to an equally rusty but equally dependable old Dodge step-side pickup truck or a Lancia in similar condition.
Conversations often flow into nostalgia, remembering what it was like in a world of dial telephones, manual typewriters and gas pumps at service stations with a bell that rang when you drove in and a fill-up that came with a check of oil, water and tire pressure. However, the group might just as often compare features on new iPhones or discuss the ins and outs of setting up a home Wi-Fi system.
If you’ve got a newer or older car that’s the slightest bit out of the ordinary, you should drop by with it on a Saturday morning and join in the fun. If it’s not running, come anyways as someone might be able to offer some advice on how to get it back out on the road.
And if you’re just downtown on a Saturday morning – between 9 and 11 a.m. – stop by and look at the cars. Show them to your children to help them understand the evolution of technology, or just to tell them what it was like when mom and dad, or grandma and granddad, drove a car just like this one. They guarantee you’ll be welcomed, and there’s never an admission charge or dues to be collected.
Note: This is a slightly edited version of a recent article, written by Gary and Genie Anderson for the Los Altos Town Crier.
Volunteers Helping Seniors
What began as a simple desire to help fellow residents, has blossomed over the past 8 years to include almost a dozen cities and hundreds of volunteers. The focus of all this care an compassion? Our senior citizens. Through the years, Carol & I have been a part of many coordinated efforts. The RSVP program, is once such effort.
The day of volunteering was recently covered by the Town Crier. Below are highlights from a recent article which highlighted how the program has helped to improve the lives of those assisted …
More than 100 Realtor volunteers helped 46 senior households, in the Los Altos and Mountain View area, during Realtor Service Volunteer Week.
Volunteers from Intero Real Estate Services & the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors helped seniors and the homebound with household. Wearing T-shirts emblazoned with a blue-and-yellow logo that identified them as members of the Realtor Service Volunteer Program, workers descended on households to help homeowners and renters with chores they can no longer perform by themselves.
Seniors were grateful for the free service. “I really appreciate the help,” said one 84-year-old senior, who has requested help for the past two years. “I still do quite a bit of the work myself. I even used to climb the stepladder, but my son gets worried about that, so I don’t do it anymore.”
Three volunteers visited her home to wash exterior windows, move a stove and refrigerator so she could clean underneath and replace her smoke-detector batteries. When a volunteer climbed the stepladder to replace the battery, he noticed there were none. That sparked a memory for the senior homeowner.
“I remember taking it out, but I never replaced it, because I couldn’t reach to put the new one in,” she said. Local Realtors officially adopted RSVP as a community outreach project in 2002, and it has since expanded to include realtor association members from other cities and counties.
Every May, these volunteers help seniors and the homebound with household tasks, such as washing windows, installing smoke-detector batteries, flipping mattresses, vacuuming, dusting, replacing light bulbs, changing furnace filters and trimming bushes.
Outside the home of a 90-year-old Mountain View resident, the team of Carol Casas, Hilda and Nick loosened dirt in a flowerbed, swept the patio and carport, trimmed ivy in her front yard and washed windows. “My children have gone and moved away, so it’s wonderful to have help. I couldn’t do it any other way,” the homeowner said. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
About Us
Moving into Los Altos? We can help! We have lived in Los Altos for the past 35 years and love helping people buy and sell homes in this great city! We bring experience, knowledge, skills and professionalism to each of our client relationships. Our clients will agree they would not have had the same positive experience, at each step of the way, if they had not had us represent them.
David Casas Cell: 650-823-8920 or Email
(DRE#01116954)
Carol Casas Cell: 650-823-1434 or Email
(DRE#01123855)