autographs: johnny rutherford

my parents split up when i was 6. my mom stayed in texas and my dad moved us kids to indianapolis.

to many people, "indianapolis" means only one thing: the indy 500.

i never really cared much about the race, but it's such a big part of the city's culture that it's hard to avoid it. inevitably you learn a little something about the drivers and the cars. so from a very young age i remember being aware of the names al unser, mario andretti, and johnny rutherford.

though our primary residence was indianapolis, every summer and every christmas rob and i would fly to fort worth to spend time with my mom. we travelled alone and we travelled a lot.

i was probably about 10 years old, my brother about 8, and we were on a flight to DFW to visit mom for the summer. i heard people seated around us talking about johnny rutherford being on the plane. there was a buzz circulating about: "johnny rutherford! johnny rutherford!" i'm sure this was the only flight on earth where anyone would even care about johnny rutherford... he was flying from the indy 500 to his home town of fort worth.

a little spark of courage got into us and rob & i left our seats (after the "fasten seat belt" light was turned off, of course... we were good kids) and walked up the aisle to the first-class curtain. i pushed it aside (brazen, too!) and found the man that looked most like johnny rutherford.

"mr. rutherford??" i timidly asked. he turned his head to us and smiled.

whew, i got the right guy. "can i have your autograph?"

he said yes and waited for me to produce a piece of paper and a pen. of course i didn't have either of these things... i was only 10 and had never asked for an autograph before. i wasn't even sure what i was supposed to do with the autograph. put it in a scrapbook, i guess. i'd need to get a scrapbook.

mr. rutherford found a big 4x6 card somewhere in his carry-on bag and borrowed a pen from someone, then signed his name for me. we said thank you, turned around and went back down the aisle to our seats in coach class.

the experience was a little dizzying (or maybe that was just the altitude) -- even though i didn't care very much about the indy 500, i knew he was a celebrity and that other people would be impressed that i had johnny rutherford's autograph.

oh, and i did, in fact, get a scrapbook that summer. it's actually just a photo album. i keep a lot of ridiculous stuff in there, including these autographs and class photos from elementary school.

Posted by xta at April 25, 2005 01:35 PM | TrackBack