Rest in peace, Mr. Hill . . .

Last night I got a very sad phone call. It was my dad letting me know that one of his best friends, Phil Hill, had died.

Now, the news affected me with mixed emotions. I was very sad to hear a man who I associate so many happy childhood memories with, was gone. However, I knew he had been suffering from Parkinson's for quite a while and had been getting progressively worse these past 6 months or so.

The last time I spoke to him was about 6-8 months ago. I called my dad and the two of them were at lunch somewhere in LA. My dad handed me over to him so we could chat. My dad had told me he was having issues with his voice, but I hadn't realized the extent of it, until I hard him speak. Unfortunately the background noise from the restaurant made the soft tone of his voice even more difficult to understand.

Thankfully I was able to tell my dad to apologize for me to him if our conversation sounded off, but I came away from the phone call feeling so bad.

This was not the Mr. Hill I remember . . .

I remember make the trips up to Santa Monica with my dad to visit the Hills, Phil and Alma and their kids Vanessa and Derek. Vanessa and I had become friends, and I loved how Alma never minded us commandeering the living room area as our fort where we pulled off all the cushions and dedicated it as "our" area.

Then there was Phil's beloved cl umber spaniel, Chummly. The poor thing was old and blind by the time I got to spend time with him, but he always made the visits fun.

And of course there were his cars and the restoration business. When I was about 10, I decided the coolest car in the world was a 1920's era Packard that Mr. Hill had restored and given to his wife for their anniversary. The reason why it was so cool . . . it was purple!

The icing on the cake was when Phil was our personal chauffeur 15 years ago, taking Hubby and I from the church to our reception in a 1950's Bentley that was owned by another friend, Mr. Gil Nickels.

There are many, many more memories that will make up what was a pretty cool childhood and remind me just how lucky I was to have known Phil and his family.

So my thoughts are with Alma, Jennifer, Vanessa, Derek, and all the grand kids.

And to my dad, John. Thanks Dad!