Your Summer Reading List: The Time My Grandfather Met Bob Hope

The story goes like this: my grandfather met Bob Hope sometime in the early 1960s, outside the big hotel on Central and Mockingbird. Back then, that hotel was called the Hilton Inn, but it looks pretty much the same now as it did in the past. Both my grandfather and Bob Hope were waiting for their cars to be pulled around, and Bob Hope was dressed for golf.

This is a major event in my family’s history, but what I just told you is the entire story as I know it. I don’t know why my grandfather was at the Hilton Inn, waiting for his car, and I don’t know why Bob Hope was in town that day, other than to play golf.

I like stories like this, though. I know the building, so I can picture it. I know my grandfather and Bob Hope, so I can picture them. The rest of the details don’t matter much—just two men, saying hello.