Who the heck is Alfie?
Long story short: Alfie crashed his car into our back yard.
Long story long: Alfie’s car fell off a cliff and landed on our property. Here’s how it happened:
In 2006, we’d just moved to Topanga Canyon, California—best described as the hills northwest of Los Angeles, or the backside of eastern Malibu. Topanga is known as equal parts nature preserve, artist enclave, and hippie haven—an unpredictable blend of coyotes, artists and the scent of sage. Our house sat at the end of a dirt road atop a steep hill. Behind it, the land dropped sharply into a seasonal wash and then shot back up an even steeper slope.
I worked from home as an economic and regulatory consultant on energy policy [insert super-nerd emoji here]. I was on a conference call discussing renewable-energy incentives when an older man—scraped and dusty—knocked on the window of my office door. I muted the call and opened the door.
“I just crashed my car into the back of your property,” he said.
Completely confused, I replied, “That’s impossible. There are no roads that run along my property.”
“My car just fell into your property,” he insisted.
Again, I replied: “Impossible. There are no roads that run along my property.”
We went back and forth, each increasingly bewildered, until he finally said, “I was at Skip’s house.”
…Oh boy…
Skip was our neighbor—sort of. She lived way up the hill on the adjoining property. Picture the quintessential octogenarian California free spirit: floppy flower-adorned hat, flowing skirt, and nightly roll calls for her rare breed of sheep—“Tinkerbell! Lulu! Tiiiink!”
Alfie had been helping Skip with her horses. He’d parked his old Jeep Cherokee near the edge of her property but forgot to set the brake. As the car began to roll, he dove in to try to stop it. Too late. The Jeep went over the edge of what was essentially a cliff. Alfie was thrown into the back as the car bounced more than 200 feet down the hillside before finally landing in the ravine behind our house. Miraculously, Alfie walked away with minor scrapes and a terrifying story.
I was now thoroughly freaked out. I was home alone in this “new neighborhood.” Was the crashed Jeep going to spark a fire in the infamously dry California brush? And how on earth were we going to get a car out of the ravine behind our house? I called Chris, who was teaching high school in very-inner-city Los Angeles. After what felt like six tries, he picked up. “I can’t leave,” he said. “I’ve got Bloods and Crips in the same room. If I walk out, these kids will kill each other. Call the fire department.”
The fire department arrived, assured me the gas tank was intact and nothing would catch fire; and reminded me that this was private property, so…good luck! A neighbor gave Alfie a ride home to rest and regroup.
Alfie came back that evening with a flatbed trailer and two friends: a dude in board shorts and flip flops and his girlfriend in a sundress and cowboy boots—perfect attire for digging a car out of thick California brush. Thankfully, Chris figured out a way to pull Alfie’s car out with our own Jeep.
As we got to know Alfie, we learned he was a Vietnam veteran who came home and bought a huge stretch of land high in the Malibu hills. He was a totally cool cat with so many stories. He was also, we discovered, a world-class hoarder—supposedly the only person in the history of American Pickers who refused to part with anything. And as his Jeep bounced down that cliff, half the contents of his car bounced out too. For years afterward I found stray sockets, wrenches, and screwdrivers littered down the hillside like the aftermath of a toppled toolbox.
Chris had always referred to this event as “Alfie’s Wild Ride.” Years later, when we were searching for a creative name with a nod to this place’s past as an auto garage, a picture of Alfie popped up on a screen.
And that, my friends, is why we call it Alfie’s Wild Ride. Because life is a wild ride, and because sometimes life’s strangest situations have a way of introducing you to some pretty great and unforgettable people.
