The Terrible Catsafterme

I guess you could say that Chuck McCann and I go way back. All the way back to July 29, 1980, when he asked me – and eight-year old at the time – to borrow my pen so that he could sign something as he registered for the Sons of the Desert “Hollywood ’80” convention. I knew two things about Chuck at that time: that he had portrayed Oliver Hardy in a series of TV commercials (opposite Jim MacGeorge), and that he had been one of the founding members of the Sons of the Desert (as officially outlined in the Sons Constitution). Read the rest of this entry »

I was excited about a lot of things when I headed to Las Vegas during the Summer of 1992, but there wasn’t anything about the trip that excited me more than to get to meet Jacquie Lyn. For as many years as I had been a Laurel and Hardy fan, I had longed to find out whatever had happened to this young actress, who was featured very prominently in the 1932 Laurel and Hardy feature film Pack Up Your Troubles, and had starred in two Our Gang shorts Birthday Blues and Free Wheeling. In fact, I wasn’t the only one looking for her. Read the rest of this entry »

For week, maybe even months, before we actually departed for the 8th International Convention of the Sons of the Desert, my friend Jon Petering kept telling me, “Buddy, I can’t wait to get on that plane.” Yes, for some odd reason one of my fellow Kroger baggers was going along with us to Las Vegas to attend the convention. It was a little odd, because he had no real interest in Laurel and Hardy, but the allure of Las Vegas and the untold pleasures he could find there was too much to resist. In the end, his favorite quote was “Buddy, there’s nothing to do here”, and he spent a lot of his time sitting in the room watching baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

Summer and the J-months had been off to a rip-roaring start and I didn’t intend to let the momentum go as we began our descent out of June 2011. I strolled through it doing more than just enjoying the sounds of Peter Case, Jet, Hard-Fi, the Young Veins, Panic! at the Disco, and weekly doses of Billboard #1 hits on the iPod. There were still lots of fun things to do right here in our homeland, before the big Summer vacations would be commencing. Although the first event of this final week of June seemed unassuming, it was a catalyst for an entirely new ‘bucket list’ that I would soon be adding to my repertoire of things-to-do-before-I-die. It began as an innocent dinner near Jamie’s house. Read the rest of this entry »

I entered the state of Wyoming – the least populous state in the entire United States of America – for the first time at about 2:40pm local time on Friday, May 27, 2011. Although there are some nice National Parks to explore one day on the northwest portion of the state, I only had one item of interest to see that was located on the southeast side. You guessed it… the State Capitol building is located in Cheyenne – the state’s most populated city with a population of around 60,000 – which was only about a two-hour drive to Denver. My cousin Chris obliged my whimsy and drove. Jamie obliged it and went along. And Livi obliged all of our whimsies by not screaming at the top of her lungs. At least for a while.   Read the rest of this entry »