AL...AL!!!

 AL...AL!!!






     In the colorful adult life of South Gate there was a network of guys who could get things done without having to go through a lot of red tape. There were good friends who could make a traffic ticket disappear, get you a suit for a verrrry low price, procure things off the docks in San Pedro that were limited to black market business deals. BC knew the automobile scene because he had been a salesman at J.M. Taylor Oldsmobile on Long Beach blvd where he once won a Rocket 88 pin as salesman of the year for 1955. While I was a small kid I have many fond but dim memories of the whole web of body shops, backroom deals, used cars sold out of driveways and the magic of totalled cars coming back to life as transportation for young drivers (see Dave Hogan.) One of the small but worthwhile dealmakers was  Al Siegal Imports who ran a little shop at 9019 Long Beach blvd. where great deals could be made on foreign used cars. This was well before the Japanese cars dominated U.S. roads and most of these used imports were rare on any highway in the southeast. It was at Al's place that the Sheehy family bought a couple of little known Datsuns that served Jack and Greg for many years. This story involves a visit we made with both Greg and I who witnessed a memorable scene in the "showroom" at this place with the key player being the man himself. A deal was being made for a car and it may have been one of three I got at the lot which were a Renault-Dauphine with top speed 50 mph, a Taunus with a busted gear-shift and a TR3 sports car that all got me from here to there with some drama involved. Al was a wreck of a man with physical condition that was nothing short of hanging by a thread between selling cars and taking a nap out at Forest  Lawn. Al was known to be the owner of a bad ticker, he had one bad eye behind an opaque lens in his thick glasses and between wheezes from his tired lungs he puffed a huge cigar at all times. However, when he had a possible sale he moved quickly to close the deal and this was a case when the ink was on the dotted line and he needed to get a pink slip in the buyers hands to get the cash. The "showroom" was just a trailer with a sliding glass door and Al briskly headed toward the lot in search of the paperwork when several folks saw he did not realize the sliding door was fully closed. Those men, including BC called out "AL!  AL!" but it was too late. Al's bald pate crashed hard into the glass door and sent him backward and down on the seat of his slacks. There was great consternation but when Al got his head cleared he went on with the sale of $800 worth of mighty cool transportation. 




     

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