DEAR SUN SPOTS: Great column. Keep it up! If you can, please tell us more about your parimutuel experience at the dog track.

I also need your help. I have a 7- by 9-foot wooden garage door. I want to replace only the bottom section, a four-panel piece that is 22 inches deep by 9 feet wide. Anybody in the L-A area have one in good condition?

Also, I am seeking to cover a 6-1/2 by 6-1/2 foot patio door with clear Plexiglas. Anybody have some? Thank you. — Mark, Greene, 946-2002

ANSWER: Sun Spots got started as a parimutuel teller in the mid-1980s, when she was working her way through college. She started in greyhound racing in a town just north of Denver, Colo., then when she moved to the Washington, D.C., area she switched to horses and worked at Pimlico in Baltimore, where the Preakness, the second leg of the Triple Crown, is run.

Her most memorable experience was one Saturday night when a nice young couple came to her window, clearly first-timers at the track. They had gotten lucky and won about $50. The husband smiled and said that was nice; it paid for their night out. But the wife was desperate to play again. Her husband had to literally drag her from the window, and Sun Spots would be willing to bet a year’s pay that she returned to bet again.

As for finding your garage-door section, have you tried the Building Materials Exchange? It is designed to help low-income homeowners get supplies to fix up their homes, but anyone can shop there (low-income buyers get a discount). Sun Spots has donated to them, and she suspects they might get a lot of odd or unusual items, like your garage door piece. They are at 102 Lisbon Road, Lisbon, 636-7670.

Sun Spots is a big user of Plexiglas. Her homemade cabin has odd-sized windows, and she winterized them using Plexiglas covers. It can be useful, but for the size of door you are considering, even if you could find a sheet of Plexiglas that large, it might crack and break if it gets windy. Sun Spots covered a 3- by 4-foot window with one sheet and it didn’t even make it through the first winter. The following summer she had her carpenter make a support, crossing the Plexiglas horizontally and vertically, and screwed it to the replacement Plexiglas before putting it in the window frame.

Plexiglas can also be expensive. Sun Spots has bought some salvaged Plexiglas from Lakeview Lumber (1341 Lakeview Drive, South China, 968-2498). It’s a bit of a drive from L-A, but might be worth it if they have the full sheets (4 by 8 feet is the largest) at a good price. The edges are often chipped, so account for that in your measurements. Be sure and call first; they don’t always have it in stock.

DEAR SUN SPOTS: I graduated from Mechanic Falls High School in 1968 (the last class to actually graduate from there), and I never got a yearbook. I have wished so often that I had one. Is there anyone who has a 1968 yearbook and would be willing to sell it to me? — Peggy Worthley Cox, Peg416@roadrunner.com

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