It must have been 3:30 in the morning before we heard even rumor of another flight going to LA. I don’t remember where I was coming from. It was eerily quiet in the Vegas airport, emptyish. It seemed they’d turned half the lights off in the corridors and terminals – real moody.
Like out of a freaky film walks this little blue haired lady passing through the spotlights from the ceiling. She walked up and poked me in the arm.
“Is that Dave Thomas, from Wendy’s?”
I followed her finger and saw a man in a suit. My eyes shot open wider and my jaw must have dropped a bit.
“No, that’s not him.”
The woman shook her head slightly and mumbled, and she slowly shuffled away. I could hear her muttering disappointment, as though she’d been on the chase and just missed him, again. He was her Moby Dick.
I had nothing on me to support an autograph attempt. No pen, and no paper. Nothing. I dug deep into my light wallet and pulled out my good luck cigar wrapper.
I graduated in 1996. When I returned to LA my sister and her boyfriend had an apartment with a pool. My sister worked and her boyfriend and I lived like criminals. We hustled. And the waking hours were often spent poolside with a chessboard, telephone, newspaper and drinks. And he had scored a box of Cuban cigars.
My experience with cigars had been squat up to that point. I couldn’t tell the difference between fine cigars and rolled up clippings from the Bible. We smoked through these things like cheap beedies (those little Indian cigarettes), and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t get really high from a cigar. You can. You do. Hard.
From that box of cigars was this one remaining cigar band, hidden in my wallet for months. In the Vegas airport, I approached Tommy Lasorda hoping he had a pen. He was greased in a nicely cut suit, and had that successful business trip look about him, like he had enough machismo for more.
He had a pen, and he signed the band, and today as I cleaned my office up a bit I came across it. In the image above, you can see his signature better when I adjust the colors. The paper is getting brittle, and so I made an envelope for it from a gallery card, below.
Someday, I’ll frame it, proper.
Anthony Godoy is a knock-around creative living in Seattle. He limits his Facebook friends list to friends, keeps his LinkedIn connections limited, and his list of accolades short. Because when the dog calls the cat’s bluff, it’s all over but the crying.