Holiday break-in results in community and car-club cooperation

By Chris Mac Kenzie
For The Alpine Sun
 

     ALPINE — Christmas 2006 didn’t promise to be the best one ever for Fred Loegel, owner of Fred’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers and Malts. Just four days before the holiday he underwent heart surgery and on Christmas Eve his restaurant on Alpine Boulevard was broken into and trashed.
     But Christmas 2006 turned out to be one of the most wonderful he has ever experienced, thanks to a multitude of good friends.
     The story goes like this. On Christmas morning he checked his little drive-in restaurant even though it was to be closed for the holiday, only to find a broken window shattered all over the floor, the video cameras smashed, the power to the freezers shut off, but the safe still intact despite obvious attempts to open it with a blow torch.
     Fred thinks that the burglary was part of a group of three or four the same night at the Countryside Center, “only there,” Fred said “they got a lot of money. The only money they got here was the change in the tip jar, but they sure made a mess.”
     Obviously not a happy Christmas, but the tide was turning. One of his friends, another antique car buff, happened by and immediately offered to round up 20 guys within the hour to help with the clean-up. Fred refused with grateful thanks, saying, “I don’t have 20 brooms and I’m sure we can manage it ourselves. It’s not that bad.”
     But the word of the misfortune spread rapidly. Two other car buff friends, Jerry and Francie, from the local Over the Hill Car Club, posted it on the internet and made plans to create a silver lining for Fred and his wife Linda.
     Late on Friday afternoon, 100 beautiful, shiny, antique cars and their owners showed up, filling the Ranch Market parking lot and both sides of the boulevard.
     "I didn’t even know they were coming. It was a big surprise. They were from all the local car clubs,” said Fred. “The Corvette Club, the Camaro Club, East County Cruisers, the Monday Night Car Club and some more I can’t even remember now.
     “Everybody pitched in to help, waiting tables, serving burgers, cleaning up. Jay and Linda organized the whole party. All I had to do was run the cash register.”
     Fred explained that they usually have a raffle at car club shows. This time the winners all put their winnings in an envelope, then kept adding to it with silly fines imposed on the willing members. They finally gave the envelope to Fred with $400 spilling out of it.
     “Then,” said Fred, “when they found out the tip money, which goes to the kids who work here, was gone, they filled that tip jar to the top, with about $90.”
     Fred is still overcome by the whole affair.
     “I can’t even describe what it meant to me,” he said. “I guess I was still suffering a little from post-operative strain, and they just lifted me up. It put the spring back in my step. There was so much love that night, I still can’t believe it.”
     “But,” he said after a pause. “I guess that’s what real friends do. They help one another.”

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