I’ll Have a Shirley Temple and Keep ‘Em Coming
Sunday, December 2nd, 2007
My autograph collecting didn’t exactly get off to a rip-roaring start in the first months of 1986, but there were some cool ones that I added to my collection nonetheless. Following the great Jim Brady autograph that I’ve already shown, I posted a letter to Jean Darling on January 16 after receiving her package in the mail and she reponded on February 4 (see here). Then on January 21, I sent out two requests – one to Bob Hope (which yielded a return of a secretarial signature on February 5), and one to Ray Bolger (which yielded three photos, some of which can be seen here). Read the rest of this entry »
After a brief stay in 
The assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan by the loony John Hinckley on March 30, 1981 left quite an impression on me when it occurred. I remember Mark Staples knocking on our front door and delivering the news after school that Monday. I was a Jimmy Carter supporter in the last election (mainly because my parents were), and I was incredulous that an actor could have ascended to the highest office in the land. I later came around to having a great deal of respect for Reagan, but even then it shook me that our leader could take an would-be assassin’s bullet. The other thing that I could never get out of my mind was that Reagan’s press secretary James Brady (seen above left just before the incident in the blue suit) had been shot in the head. 
I’m not proud of them, I don’t often show them off, but nevertheless I have kept them perfectly preserved in an old folder from Junior High. They are, of course, FUNSHIETS, the ‘publication’ Jeff Flinn and I created during our seventh grade year at Ankeney Junior High. I would have never recalled the exact history of the formation of the FUNSHIET, but as fate would have it, one of my editorials in issue #4, actually detailed it for me. 
It was early in 1986 when I first began to feel that I was somehow emerging from the cocoon of the awkward age. The pre-teen fat seemed to be melting off as I began to sprout upwards slightly. There was still some geekiness about me (as there always will be I suppose), but as far as my appearance goes, I didn’t feel completely alienated any longer. Another huge change at home was that Dad moved back into the house within a few months after the New Year. I think that being together with his family for the holidays inspired him to make the effort to reconcile.