A Bond Ave. Rollers Story
The first thing the Bond Ave. Rollers ever stole was Number 56.
At least, that’s how my manager at Carl’s Jr. told the story. He blamed Rick, because Rick owned the black ’56 Ford parked outside. But I knew what really happened. I was right there in the thick of it.
It was 1975, and I was sixteen, working nights at a Carl’s Jr. in Orange, California. I didn’t have a car unless you counted the occasional use of my mom’s station wagon, which no sixteen-year-old ever did. But every Friday night I had a front-row seat to the best car show in town.
They called themselves the Bond Ave. Rollers, although you wouldn’t have guessed they were one club by looking at their cars. Rick had the clean black ’56 Ford two-door. Eddie had a Nova with the rear end in the air and enough rubber underneath it pave the street. Lisa drove a clean California-style VW Bug, nose down, trim cleaned up and wheels that always seemed shinier than everybody else’s.
Mike was already fooling around with a Datsun pickup when most of us still thought little trucks belonged to gardeners and parts runners. Terry had somehow talked his parents into letting him buy a Tradesman, which was slowly disappearing beneath tinted windows, portholes, carpet and whatever else he could afford that week.
The cars had almost nothing in common except one thing. Across the rear windows, BOND AVE. ROLLERS flashed in prism tape, outlined and shadowed by hand with One Shot. Under the parking-lot lights, those letters seemed to move when you walked past them.
I knew the cars before I knew the people.
Every Friday the Rollers came through my line, ordered enough burgers, fries and shakes to take over two tables, then spent the next hour talking about carburetors, paint, junkyard parts and which guy across town was lying about what his Camaro ran at OCIR grudge night. I dropped the tray next to the number 56 in front of Rick.
56.
Just as I dropped his food, Rick snatched the 56. He looked at it, then me, then through the window at his Ford.
“Hey, I got a ’56.”
Mike barely looked up from his fries. “Put it on your dash. That way you won’t forget what year your car is.”
Everybody laughed.
Rick didn’t.
He turned the little number over in his hand and looked outside again.
“That’s actually pretty cool.”
Barely listening to their dialog, I just figured he’d leave it on the table when they went out.
About an hour later I was cleaning up when I noticed the 56 was gone. I walked outside and there it was, sitting in the center of Rick’s windshield.
I tapped on the glass.
Rick rolled down the window.
“You know I’m gonna get blamed for that.”
He handed me a couple bucks.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Number 56.” he replied.
“It’s not for sale.”
“It is now.” he smirked.
I pocketed the money.
The next Friday Eddie spent half the night trying to get Number 69 for his Nova. Lisa wanted a 67. Terry switched numbers with his buddy who ordered the same thing.
Soon the Rollers weren’t the only ones doing it. A ’57 Chevy showed up with 57 on the dash. Then a Mustang. Then another Tri-Five. Guys started looking at their table number before they even looked at their food.
My manager was getting irritated. I thought it was hilarious. Then one afternoon he came out of the storeroom carrying a cardboard box.
“We’re replacing these,” he said. “Throw ’em away.”
Inside were a couple dozen old numbered table tents—scratched, faded and greasy from years of burgers and French fries. I looked at the box. Then I looked at him. “Throw them away?”
“That’s what I said.”
They never made it to the dumpster. That was the part Rick and the others never knew. For the next few weeks, if somebody pulled into Carl’s Jr. with a car I liked and the right number happened to be in that box, somehow that number found its way onto their dash. And, I’d have some pocket change.
Sometimes I’d say something like: “Nice ’65.”
Sometimes I didn’t have to. He’d slip a few bucks across the counter, and I’d reach down to the box and handed him a number. Before long I started seeing those numbers at other parking lots. Then at cruise nights. Then on cars I had never seen before.
Did the Bond Ave. Rollers start the whole Carl’s-number-on-the-dashboard thing? I couldn’t prove it then, and I sure can’t prove it now. Car culture didn’t work that way in those days. There was no social media documenting where every idea began. Something cool appeared on one car, somebody copied it, somebody else changed it, and six months later everybody swore their buddy invented it.
But I know where I saw it first. And I know a box of old Carl’s Jr. numbers never made it to the trash. By the end of that summer, the Rollers had stopped treating me like the kid behind the counter. I still wasn’t exactly one of them, though. There was one requirement I couldn’t get around.
I needed a car.
That changed one afternoon when Mike walked into Carl’s Jr., leaned against the counter and asked, “Danny, you still looking for something?”
“Always.”
“How do you feel about a Chevy?”
That got my attention.
“What year?”
“Thirty-two.”
I laughed because I figured he was kidding. He wasn’t. The car had four doors, no engine, questionable brakes and weeds growing through the running boards.
To me, it looked perfect. And, I had a few bucks saved up.
It was a 1932 Chevrolet sedan, and before I ever got the thing running, I was about to learn that 1932 had been a pretty interesting year for more than just cars.
But that’s another story.
