Mr. Toad's Mild Ride

THAT YEAR I lived alone. My life was changing in dramatic fashion, and among the many consequences was that I had to find a new place of my own. In need of something to smile about and inspired by the notion that “somebody in this glossy town must have a great guest house for rent,” I bought a copy of The Hollywood Reporter, and sure enough, back in the classifieds I found just such a place. It was an extremely agreeable one-bedroom apartment under the main house in one of the choicest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The actress Mariel Hemingway, I found out soon after, had lived there before me. For months I collected the mail that continued to arrive for her and delivered it to my landlords upstairs for forwarding.

- Arthur St. Antoine

Being alone, suddenly I had an unusual amount of free time on my hands (an amount that, unfortunately, could not be filled entirely by collecting the letters and catalogs addressed to the granddaughter of one of the greatest writers of the 20th century). So … in the evenings I started walking. A lot. And it was on one of those walks past the billiard table lawns and portes-cochères of my newly rented neighbors that I first spotted the vehicle that would turn out to be the focus of my walks for the better part of the ensuing year.

It was not, as you might’ve guessed, a red Ferrari or a diamond-encrusted Rolls-Royce. Far from it. The machine that caught my eye was a humble Ford F-100. That might not sound like a rig that would cause a professional car critic to pause for a longer look, but this particular truck was vintage and in exceptional condition for its age (I guessed it to be a ’70 model), and it wore a lovely two-tone mint-green-over-white paint job. What’s more, this one hadn’t been ruined with the typical set of gaudy aftermarket mags; no, this F-100 wore its original steel wheels and understated “dog dish” hubcaps. Whoever owned this Ford had taste.