The Terrible Catsafterme

Saturday, October 17, 2009, saw my very last road trip of the year. It also happened to be the Hallmark greeting card holiday of Sweetest Day. Originally my friend Heidi was going to make the trek to Chicago with me to attend another Hollywood Celebrities and Memorabilia Show, but she was unable to find a babysitter. So I asked my Mom if she’d be willing to make the drive up there with me and be my personal photographer for the day. She showed mercy on me, and my promise to buy dinner clinched the deal.

So Mom spent the night at my place on Friday night and we left bright and early on Saturday morning a little after 6am, alternating driving privileges along the way, and stopping at McDonalds for breakfast. We used my relatively new GPS device, which did well – even if taking us a different route with a couple more toll booth stops than I had gone before. But the drive was fine and gave Mom the opportunity to pry into my secret life as a superhero. We arrived at the Wyndham O’Hare Airport Hotel a little before 11:00, having gained an hour by traveling west.

The show itself was a great one. I had assembled a list of fourteen celebrities that I wanted to either get autographs of, photo with, or both. Sadly, Val Kilmer, one of the main celebs who I had hoped to get a picture with had changed his schedule to ‘Sunday only’ – as I found out when my pal Dave Chasteen texted me not long after we had left home. In addition, Claudia Wells from Back to the Future had become a Sunday only girl as well.

I got out of this show without spending too much cash, mostly because I already had autographs from a great deal of the celebs, and only wanted photographs with – something several of them did for free. In all, I only dropped about $200 in addition to Mom’s and my admission. You can follow the trail of this show’s celebrities here.

The highlight of the show was the American Graffiti reunion, which saw five of the stars from the film. Again, I already had all of their signatures, but wanted pictures with each. Present at the show who I didn’t have quite enough interest in to get anything from were Joan Severance, Eddie Mekka, Gregory Harrison, and the usual handful of stars whom I had never even heard of. Deborah Van Valkenburgh was present as well, but I had just seen her at the Burbank show in July.

One of the biggest thrills was seeing Jenilee Harrison from Three’s Company again. I had met her in Burbank in July as well and went up to her to say hello and remind her that we had met. Before I could open my mouth, she beamed at me and completely recalled our meeting and conversation from three months ago. I knew she was friendly before, but didn’t realize how complete genuine she truly is.

I had finished with all of the celebrities in about an hour. No one really had much of a line, except for Ernest Borgnine, who incidentally offered to let Mom get a photo with him, even though I had only paid for mine. I guess to him, she was a pretty young spring chicken. Mom and I browsed the memorabilia room for a bit, where she looked for some DVDs to hand out for Christmas. We left Chicago before 1pm. Yes, we had driven over five hours to get there, spent less than two hours, and were already heading home. Yes, this was a planned program.

Mom and Ernest Borgnine. Never thought I’d be stringing those words together.

But in order to add just one more worthwhile element to the trip, the dinner that I treated Mom to was at the Hard Rock Cafe. Located about three and a half hours south of Chicago in Indianapolis, Indiana, I had missed the chance to eat here during my visit here last year. So this became my tenth Hard Rock Cafe visit of the year and my 20th overall. Knowing I wouldn’t be at another one for a while, I stuck with my favorite – the Hickory Smoked BBQ Bacon Burger. We were there about an hour, browsed the memorabilia, and were on our way back home.

Outside the Indianapolis Hard Rock. Ten for the year. Twenty for all-time.

We were seated under the Hard Rock Cafe Indianapolis sign but this didn’t necessarily equate to a great picture

This jacket was used in the John Lennon film How I Won the War – and was signed by Lennon

But the day didn’t end there. We got back at the reasonable hour of about 8:30 – which left me enough to time to meet up with some gals from high school at Adobe Gilas. I keep in touch regularly with my friend Alicia Keeton and she had told me that a few of our old high school friends would be getting together to celebrate the occasion of our friend Jana Fine returning to Ohio after more than a dozen years. She currently lives with her husband and son in Jacksonville, Florida.

Way back in the Fall of 1987, Jana Fine was my big 30-day crush – give or take a few days. We were in the same gym class as sophomores at Beavercreek High School and for a short time, she was the apple of my eye. Every day we talked about going to a concert of some sort together, although I’m sure she was just humoring me. Of course, it never happened and I eventually moved on to the next crush.

But all of the concert talk prompted her to write the following on the back of her picture to me: Brad – My concert buddie! I hope we finally get to go see one!!! – Love, Jana. Of course the fact that she added I HEART J.T.! might have deterred me a bit as well.

Jana in 1987, tenth grade

With Jana Fine

Along with Alicia and Jana were Jenn Reichard and Suzanne Livingston, two other gals from high school who I didn’t know quite as well, but was always friendly with nonetheless. Not wanting to completely crash their ‘girls night out’, I just swung by Adobe Gilas after they had had dinner together and visited with them for about an hour. It was great to see them all and they are all four fun, kind, and attractive ladies.

My good friend Alicia

With Jenn Reichard

With Suzanne Livingston

Girls night out indeed

The day ended up by being one of the sweetest Sweetest Days I had ever spent. My Facebook status the next day touted that I had a smashing Saturday. 21 exciting things in one day. Some of them mind blowing.

It was sad to see the travels end for the year, but this is typical as we inch toward the holidays. I’m now charged with trying to make my own fun here at home which is always difficult when there is TV to contend with. Incidentally, I passed through the black and white episodes of The Andy Griffith Show and moved into the color ones.

Ashleigh, Stephen, Christi, and Creed all convened at my house on Wednesday, October 21, and I treated everyone to some Cousin Vinny’s pizza. Then on Friday, October 23, Mom, Diana, Denise, and I had a night at at La Comedia Dinner Thatre. It had been three years since I had last been there and it was fun to go back. Not to mention that the show was one of my all-time favorites, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It was a fun and lively performance which rivaled the amazing version of the show that I saw twice at Beavercreek High School back in 2006. Incidentally, Denise brought me my belated birthday gift – Season 8 of Smallville.

Me, Diana, Denise, and Mom enjoy the pre-show dinner at La Comedia

The next day, the Halloween festivities officially began. The holidays were here. Then comes winter. Hibernation time had officially begun.

October 2009 will continue with the Halloween festivities…

Follow the trail of celebrities from the Chicago show here…

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 6:16 am and is filed under 1980's - Late, 2000's - Late, Celebrity Encounters, On the Town, Reunions, Vacations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.