Curly-Joe and the Comic Books
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007
Every once in a while, I came up with a swell idea. Here’s one of them: I had purchased a half-dozen Three Stooges comic books that were distributed by Gold Key in the mid-to-late 1960′s. I’m not sure where exactly I picked them up, but if I had to guess, I’d say I found them at a memorabilia show at the Dayton Mall. So I decided to marry my comic book fascination with my autograph collecting habit and thereby shipped off four of these colorful Three Stooges comic books to Curly-Joe DeRita, one of only two of the then-surviving members of the classic comedy team. Read the rest of this entry »
Our fifth American President James Monroe served the country from 1817 to 1825. A good friend and student of Thomas Jefferson, Monroe had also served as Secretary of War and Secretary of State during the War of 1812. He is the author of the famous Monroe Doctrine, in which he forbid European powers from interfering with the affairs of the United States. My association with President Monroe was confined to the week I spent touring Virginia with my friend Bob. Here we saw several historical sites from the life of James Monroe. 
After our little gathering following the wedding of my cousin Susan and her brother Charles on October 21, 2000, it took me a week or so to decide how best to pursue Carolyn (seen with me at right in our very first picture together – taken at my Dad’s wedding). Simply put, it was a delicate situation. No one even knew that Lisa and I had effectively split up. The following week, during one of our many afternoons of playing pool together at Fox and Hound whilst eating a Black Forest sandwich, I asked my cousin Chris (who is also Susan’s brother) if he might get Carolyn’s phone number for me. I emailed him later in the week and he said that although he couldn’t find it, he simply looked it up in the phone book. Carolyn at that time was living in Kettering with her Dad. 
After leaving 