Myrtle Beach Summer ’00 – Fun at the Beach
Thursday, May 31st, 2007
One nice thing about staying at the Links condo in Myrtle Beach during the Summer is that you can get the best of both worlds: lots of activities, a nice pool, gameroom, and rather luxurious housing…and you can still go over to the Windy Shores condo and have fun at the beach. The beauty of the planning is that each condo is occupied by a different member of the family during this particular week in July. On this occasion, Darlene and her family were at Windy Shores, so off we often went. Read the rest of this entry »
Autograph collecting has always been a fun hobby. But I’d have to say it used to be more enjoyable in the past before it became so god-awful commercialized. It used to be that gathering autographs was the combined result of effort, talent, and luck. Now it’s mostly about the money. I don’t want to come down too hard on the Ray Courts Hollywood Collector’s Show or the celebrities who attend it, but it seems to me that the hobby is just getting out of hand. On Friday morning, February 16, Bob picked me up from David’s house and we headed for the show, held in Burbank. On the way, we stopped to see the grave of Oliver Hardy in Valhalla Cemetery, which meant more to me than most of the living people at the Courts show! 
The warm, sticky air and the coming of the “J” months heralded the onslaught of Summer. And as if just to prove that it was coming, it was time to celebrate Memorial Day – the kickoff to swimming, laying out, cookouts, non-stop air conditioners, and long Summer walks. These are all things that before last Summer I wanted no part of (except for the air conditioners of course), but now am feverishly looking forward to. Denise wisely chose to hold her picnic on the Sunday before the actual holiday this year. This would give everyone a day to relax and recuperate on the holiday itself: Monday, May 28. 
I’m not even sure I realized exactly who Joe and Hazel Klippel were when we used to go visit them throughout the 1970′s, but I always enjoyed making a trek with my parents to their house. Joe was actually the brother-in-law of my Grandma Range…so my Dad’s uncle by marriage. He was married to my Grandma’s sister Bessie. Joe and Bessie were the parents of Arline and Harold. Bessie passed away in 1963 and Joe later re-married a widow in 1970 who was named Hazel Mankel at the time. 
Looking at the photo at left, it’s not hard to see how I could’ve had a major crush on Jackie Moore during high school. I first met Jackie at Skateworld, the same place that I first met