It was my good fortune to be Wheeler's neighbor for many, many years in Corona del Mar. He was a remarkable person and always had a great joke to share and would always drop into the parties we threw at the old Corona Cove Apartments.

Being an automotive enthusiast, it was always amazing to me how he maintained his personal vehicles, especially the old, white Plymouth Valiant he had until it finally disintegrated. As it was towed away it resembled some of the vehicles on the "Highway of Death," pictured in magazines after the Gulf War. But, this is how Wheeler was. He must have kept R&R Automotive in business for decades with myriad, costly repairs. The car was always full of papers, journals, rags, experiments, cans of motor oil, etc. and it was NEVER washed. Fuel that had overflowed from the filler onto the back fender built up over the years until the entire area was a series of black streaks. The paint was a mixture of chalky white and rust. Hubcaps were often missing. As you might imagine, this beauty really stood out on Ocean Blvd. where luxury vehicles were parked in front of $Million homes.

As a joke, I decided to start putting things on Wheeler's car such as decals and small chrome pieces. One such decal was marked, "International Show Car Association" and I placed it in the lower middle of his back window. He never took it off and it, too, slowly disintegrated over time. I thought for certain that he would guess that it was me doing these things but he never said a word. I continued my pranks by placing Ford Mustang high performance 5.0 liter chrome moldings on the sides of each fender but he never caught on to that, either. Later, I put Pebble Beach Concours d' Elegance decals on the side windows and several other hi-po event decals on the "what used to be" chrome bumpers. At one point I even put a Balboa Bay Club decal in the proper location on his windshield. My old neighbor, Bill Edwards, and I used to laugh about these transgressions and wondered aloud what people at the grocery or even at Cal Tech must have thought when they saw Wheeler's "show" car pulling into the parking lot.

Years later, when he actually got a beautiful, new, compact car, I confessed what I had done to the Plymouth but I should have known better. Of course, Wheeler had never even noticed ANY of the creative handiwork I had done over the years! And, to my horror, he ended up giving the new car the same kind of special care and attention as the Plymouth. But, that was how Wheeler was when it came to automobiles. It is, indeed, the world's good fortune that Wheeler became a marine biologist instead of a luxury car dealer. As I said before, he was truly a remarkable guy.

Kent Moore, Neighbor