Rolls-Royce

It was an unusual deal from the start. We had an elderly customer from another town who came in occasionally for service on her vintage car. We became friends and always enjoyed seeing her as she had traveled widely and had many interesting stories about her travels. She called us one day and had an unusual request. We had never discussed her family, so we were surprised to hear that had a son in his late thirties who had been jogging in the park in Houston and had suffered a heart attack and died. She was in California with her daughter and wanted us to go to Houston and pick up a 1978 Rolls-Royce that had belonged to her son. She wanted to get a new Crown Victoria and wanted to trade in the Rolls-Royce. We had no idea what the Rolls was worth. We told her we would have to do some checking around and would get back to her in a few days. I made a bunch of calls to auto wholesales trying to come up with a number. She had said that the Rolls was in very good condition, but I had learned many years before that what the customer thought was "good condition" seldom was. With some apprehension, we came up with a trade value and called her. She was satisfied and told us the car was being stored by a friend and that they would be willing to drive it and meet us halfway from Houston. It was set up to meet on a Saturday afternoon. As we sat waiting in the Dairy Queen parking lot, my imagination ran wild and I envisioned the Rolls being delivered with a wrecker. When they pulled into the parking lot, all my fears evaporated. It was beautiful! For the first time in my life, I eased behind the wheel of a Rolls-Royce. It was a dream to drive and felt like I was floating down the highway. There was a gold plaque above the glove box that said , "Built Especially for Kemmie Adare". We found out later that she was the wife of Red Adare, the oil well fire fighter. We only had it on display for a few hours. We got a lot of curious people coming and wanting to take it for a test ride. We moved it around the back into the shop and covered it with some sheets. This car needed a special person. We had a little conference and decided that we only had a few customers that might be candidates to buy this unusual car. A few months passed and then my wife thought of a customer that we only saw a few times a year. He had purchased a large farm nearby and had been in the process of turning it into a "gentleman's ranch". He was one of the wealthy people from Houston that bought up the farms and turned them into weekend get-a-ways. My wife called up My Honeywell and told him about the Rolls. He was interested and wanted to test drive on Saturday afternoon. We closed at noon, so we went home , had lunch and returned for the 3PM appointment. Mr Honeywell arrived and I handed him the keys and I went around and sat on the passenger side. He started off slow as he got the feel of the car. We got a few miles out of town on a farm to market road and then he turned East on what the kids called Thunder Road when I was in high-school. It was about fifteen miles long and almost perfectly straight. It had been the road of choice for anyone wanting to race. As we went down the road, Mr Honeywell kept increasing the speed. I didn't say anything till he hit ninety. The I started screaming, "Mr Honeywell, slow down!" He was like a man possessed. Finally, at 105, he let off the gas. I was speechless. He pulled into a gravel driveway to turn around and we returned to the dealership. I was still speechless when we got out of the Rolls. My wife was there waiting and asked , "Well Mr Honeywell, what do you think?" He smiled at her and said, "I'll take it".