Johnny Carson’s car broke down in the NBC Burbank parking lot at 11:45 on a Tuesday night. The man who came to fix it was 43 years old, had been out of work for 7 months, and had driven 40 minutes from Reseda on a borrowed truck to answer the call. What happened in the next hour, and what arrived in the mail 3 weeks later, the man never talked about until his son found the letter after he died.
It was November 18th, 1975. The NBC Burbank lot sat on the south side of Alameda Avenue, a wide flat expanse of asphalt that emptied fast after the evening tapings finished, and went dark except for the security lights along the perimeter fence. By 11:30, most nights it held nothing but the cars of the overnight crew, and whatever had been left by people who’d taken cabs home.
On this particular Tuesday night, it held one more thing, a dark blue Oldsmobile Delta 88 that had turned over twice, and then stopped, and would not start again. Carson had tried it three times. He sat for a moment with his hands on the wheel. Then he went back inside and called the dispatch line in Van Nuys, not the premium service his assistant used for the network cars, but the number he kept in his own wallet, the one a grip named Bill Hadley had given him 2 years earlier with a specific recommendation that it was the number to call if you
wanted someone who actually knew what they were doing. The dispatch sent the call to Roy Calder. Roy Calder was 43 years old and lived in a rented house on Vanoen Street in Reseda with his wife June and his 16-year-old son Dennis. He had been a mechanic since he was 15, first in his father’s shop on Sherman Way, then in his own shop, Calder Automotive on Saticoy Avenue in Van Nuys, which he had opened in 1968 and run for 7 years until the lease tripled in April 1975, and the math stopped working and he had locked
the door for the last time on a Friday afternoon and sat in his car in the parking lot for 40 minutes before driving home. His tools were in a storage unit on Balboa Boulevard. He had put them there in April because there was nowhere else to put them and because he paid the $18 a month without complaint because the tools were the only professional capital he had left and he was not going to let them go.
A Snap-on chest, two rollaway cabinets, a floor jack, a creeper, a timing light, a compression tester, the tools his father had started him with and the tools he had added across 28 years. His father George had run a shop on Sherman Way from 1946 until his death in 1971. George had learned the trade in the Army Motor Pool in France in 1944 and had come home with the knowledge that skilled mechanical work was something the country would always need.
Roy had worked beside him through high school and after and when George was gone, the shop became Roy’s and Roy was 39 and knew what he was doing. He had opened Calder Automotive on Saticoy in 1968. Seven years steady work, a reputation as the place you went if you wanted the job done right by someone who told you exactly what was wrong and exactly what it would cost.
The lease tripling in April 1975 was not something he could absorb. He ran the numbers four ways and the number kept coming out the same. He locked the door on a Friday afternoon, put his tools in storage and called the dispatch line on Monday. He had been taking dispatch calls since May. Roadside work mostly, oil changes, jump starts, the occasional tow assist when the tow company was backed up.
The dispatch paid $12 an hour against the job rate, whichever was higher, and it was not what running a shop paid, but it was work and work was what Roy Calder knew how to do. The November call came in at 11:15. NBC Burbank parking lot, south entrance, dark blue Delta 88, won’t start. Roy was in bed.
He got up, put on his work clothes, went to the garage, and loaded what he needed into the borrowed truck, a Chevy half-ton that belonged to his neighbor Gerald, who left the keys on the workbench and never asked questions, and drove south on the 405 and east on the 134, and got to the NBC lot at 11:55. Drop your location in the comments.
I want to see how far this story travels. The security guard waved him through the south gate. Roy pulled up to the Delta 88 and got out of the truck. The lot was quiet. The security lights threw long shadows across the asphalt. It was cold for November, the kind of cold that settles into a parking lot when the sun has been gone for hours, and there is nothing to hold the warmth.
A man was standing beside the Delta 88 with his hands in the pockets of a gray jacket. He was tall with silver hair and a lean build, and he was wearing a baseball cap. He looked like someone who had been waiting patiently because he had no choice, and had decided patience was the only available response. Roy got his kit out of the truck.
He said, “Let me take a look.” The man stepped back and gave him room. Roy spent the first 10 minutes working. He checked the battery first, not dead, holding charge. He checked the connections, both clean. He pulled the distributor cap and looked at the rotor. He put his hand on the fuel line and listened when the man turned the key.
He had the specific kind of knowledge that comes from having done something for long enough that the diagnosis arrives before the conscious analysis. He knew what was wrong before he had finished confirming it. The man in the gray jacket and the baseball cap stood at the front of the car and watched Roy work.
He did not offer suggestions. He did not ask how long it would take. He stood with his hands in his pockets and watched with the attention of someone who was genuinely interested in what he was seeing, not performing patience, but actually curious about the process. Roy said, “Fuel pump. It’s going. Not gone yet, but going.
I can get it running tonight, but you’ll want to have it looked at in the next week, or it’ll leave you again.” The man said, “What does that take?” Roy said, “Hours work, new pump, parts and labor, 120, 140, depending on the pump.” The man nodded. He said, “Can you get it running tonight?” Roy said, “Give me 20 minutes.” He worked. The man stood.
At some point, Roy would later say he wasn’t sure exactly when, the man crouched down beside the front of the car and looked at what Roy was doing, not interfering, just watching. Roy had had customers do this over 28 years. Most of them were in the way before long. This one wasn’t. He stayed out of the light and watched without asking questions that would slow things down.
Roy said without looking up, “You know what you’re looking at?” The man said, “Some of it. My father had a Ford dealership in Nebraska. I spent some time in the shop when I was young.” Roy said, “Did you work on them or just watch?” The man said, “Both. More watching than working. He was faster than me.” Roy said, “Most fathers are.
” He kept working. The man stayed where he was. After a moment, he said, “How do you know where to start?” Roy said, “You listen first. Before you touch anything, you listen to what it did and what it didn’t do. The owner usually knows more than they think. They just don’t know they know it.” The man said, “You asked me what it did when you first walked up.
” Roy said, “You told me it turned over twice and stopped. That ruled out half the list. The man was quiet for a moment. He said, “My father used to say something like that about people, that they usually knew what was wrong. They just needed the right question.” Roy said, “Your father sounds like a smart man.” The man said, “He was.
Started as a mechanic before he became a dealer.” Roy said, “The ones who start from the bottom usually know what they’re doing.” He got the car running at 12:22. He stood up and wiped his hands on the shop rag he kept in his back pocket. The engine turned over clean and settled into a low, even idle. The man said, “That’s a good sound.
” Roy said, “Should hold. Get the pump replaced this week.” The man reached into his jacket for his wallet. Roy gave him the rate, the dispatch rate standard, nothing added for the hour and the drive in the cold. The man counted it out and added $20 and pushed the stack toward Roy. Roy looked at the extra 20. He said, “That’s too much.
” The man said, “It’s midnight and you drove from Merced.” Roy said, “The rate’s the rate.” The man looked at him for a moment. He said, “All right.” He took back the 20. He put it in his pocket. He didn’t make anything of it, did not make Roy feel the taking back the way some people made you feel a declined tip. He simply took it back and moved on.
He said, “How long have you been doing this?” Roy said, “28 years. Had my own shop until April. Lease issue. Doing dispatch work while I figure out the next thing.” The man said, “What’s the next thing?” Roy said, “I don’t know yet.” He said it the way a man says something he has said to himself many times and has not yet found an answer to. Not defeated. Specific.
The honest answer of someone who was still working the problem and had not resolved it. The man was quiet for a moment. He looked at the tools Roy was packing back into the truck. The organized, efficient packing of someone who knew exactly where each thing went and had put it there 10,000 times. He said, “What did your shop specialize in?” Roy said, “Domestic.
” “Mostly GM. Did some foreign work in the late ’60s when the imports started coming in.” “Got pretty good at the early Datsuns.” The man said, “You ever work on studio fleet vehicles?” Roy looked at him. He said, “What do you mean?” The man said, “The networks run a lot of vehicles. Cars for talent, crew vans, camera trucks.
They have service contracts with a shop in Glendale, but the contract is up in February. I don’t know who handles the renewal, but I know someone who does.” Roy looked at him for a long second. The security lights made it hard to read a face clearly, but Roy had been reading the faces of people who were standing next to broken cars for 28 years and he was good at it.
He said, “Mister, who are you?” The man said, “Someone whose car you just fixed.” He picked up his keys from the hood where Roy had left them. He said, “Do you have a card?” Roy said, “I haven’t had cards since April.” The man took a small notebook from his jacket. He wrote a number on a blank page.
He tore it out and handed it to Roy. He said, “That’s my office. Call in the morning. Ask for Pat. Tell her I said to give you David Lerner’s number. Lerner handles the fleet contracts. Tell him what you told me. 28 years, GM specialty, experience with imports. He’ll talk to you.” Roy looked at the paper. He said, “Why would he talk to me?” The man said, “Because I’m going to call him tonight and tell him to.
” He opened the car door. He paused with one hand on the roof. He said, “One more thing.” Roy said, “What’s that?” The man said, “That storage unit in Reseda, when you get the contract, if you get it, get a proper space for those tools. They’re not storage unit tools.” Roy did not know how the man knew about the storage unit.
He had not mentioned it. He had mentioned Reseda. And any mechanic doing dispatch work out of Reseda with a 28-year history who no longer had a shop was a mechanic with his tools in storage. And the man in the gray jacket was apparently the kind of person who put those things together without being told. He got in the car. He started it. The engine ran clean.
He pulled out of the space and drove toward the south gate and turned right on Alameda and was gone. Roy Calder stood in the NBC Burbank parking lot at 12:31 in the morning with a torn notebook page in his hand and a borrowed truck idling behind him and the security lights making long shadows across the asphalt.
He did not know who he’d been talking to. He did not find out for 3 weeks. He called in the morning. He asked for Pat. Pat gave him David Lerner’s number. He called David Lerner. Lerner had been expecting the call. That much was clear from the first sentence. Roy told him what he’d told the man in the parking lot.
28 years GM specialty, experience with imports, own shop until April, familiar with fleet maintenance from a contract he’d held with a Van Nuys car rental company from 1969 to 1973. Lerner asked four questions. The questions were specific and technical. And Roy answered them specifically and technically in the way of someone who knew the subject well enough to be specific without preparation.
Lerner said, “Can you come in Friday?” Roy came in Friday. The meeting lasted 40 minutes. Six weeks later in January 1976, Calder Automotive, newly relocated to a leased space on Cahuenga Boulevard in North Hollywood, tools out of storage, a proper lift and a parts account with a supplier on Victory Boulevard, became the primary service provider for the NBC Burbank fleet.
Three weeks after the parking lot, a letter had arrived at the Vineland Street house. Roy opened it at the kitchen table. June was doing dishes. Dennis was in his room. Roy read the letter and did not say anything for a moment. Then he said, “June, come look at this.” The letter was on plain paper, no letterhead, typed four sentences.
Roy, “Your work was good and your rate was fair. I hope the Learner meeting went well. Keep those tools out of storage.” J.C. June read it. She looked at Roy. She said, “Who is J.C.?” Roy said, “I think it’s Johnny Carson.” June looked at the letter again. She said, “Why would Johnny Carson call a part supplier in Van Nuys about a fleet contract?” Roy said, “I don’t know, but someone did.
” Roy Calder ran the NBC fleet contract for 11 years until he retired in 1987. Calder Automotive on Cahuenga stayed open until 1991, when Dennis took it over and moved it to a larger space on Lankershim. Dennis ran it until 2009. Roy died in 1998 at 66. Dennis found the letter in a cigar box in his father’s closet, along with the torn notebook page with the office number on it, and a dispatch receipt dated November the 18th, 1975.
The job sheet from the NBC Burbank call, Roy’s handwriting, Delta 88 fuel pump, 1 hour. Dennis donated the three items to the Burbank Historical Society in 2004. They sit in the same building as the Healey Hardware display, two cases apart near the east window. The card beside the case reads, “Donated by Dennis Calder in memory of his father, Roy Allan Calder, 1932 to 1998, a mechanic who answered a dispatch call and got his tools out of storage.
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