Dorothy deBorba and Edith Fellows – 2000
Saturday, May 5th, 2007
As I recall, I did not do a whole lot of autograph collecting from the celebrities in attendance at the Sea-Tac 2000 Sons of the Desert convention. I had never met Patsy Britten before so I had her sign a photo. And I had a new shot of Peggy Cartwright for her to sign – but the other three I had met on occasions in the past and pretty much had all of the autographs I needed from them – especially since they were now selling their photos at 10 bucks a pop. Read the rest of this entry »
The 2000 Seattle Sons of the Desert Convention was not the first occasion I had to meet Peggy Cartwright, but it turns out that it was the last. I was previously THRILLED to meet her for the first time during my 1992 trip to California. At that time, she was somewhat of a ‘missing’ Our Gang member – and quite an important one at that. Although she only appeared in five of the early silent Our Gang comedies, she was credited for being in the very first one one simply entitled Our Gang in 1922. 
One of the five Our Gang members who were in attendence at the 2000 Sea-Tac Sons of the Desert convention was Patsy Britten – now Pat Bell. Patsy was a recent discovery of convention host Jack Taylor and she actually lived right in the Seattle area. This was her first and only convention appearance. Patsy only appeared briefly in three Our Gang comedies but she did have a speaking role in Readin’ and Writin’ (1930). When asked by Miss Crabtree to answer the question “What is an escalator?,” Patsy responds, “It’s a great big thing that lives in the swamps. They make suitcases out of them.” 
Sons of the Desert conventions in the past had usually begun in the evening with a mixer and little else following a day of registration. Therefore, I had assumed that the Seattle convention in 2000 would be the same. Only Denise and I travelled to this convention. Lisa had decided not to go for some reason that I do not recall. We left on the afternoon of Thursday, July 20 – and not terribly early.
It was September 28, 1987 and I had gotten off the bus and was heading for home when I stopped off to get the mail. Inside the box was an envelope addressed to me from NASA. I wasn’t sure what this could be, but when I opened it up, I found a personally autographed color photo of the first man to step foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong. I was legitimately surprised to find this, as it had been more than two years since I had sent this request. It was, in fact, the sixth autograph request I had sent since starting full-force with the hobby early in 1985.