The Late Spring of ’96…Culminating with Meeting Styx
Saturday, August 30th, 2008
As Lisa and I settled into our new apartment at the Peppertree Villas on 1455 Bell Pepper Court, Apartment 203, she and I went about our business of unpacking and decorating while awaiting the arrival of Summer – not that we didn’t continue to take part in numerous activites all the while. As we attended school and worked in the front office at Kroger Beavercreek, we remained busy babysitting Ashleigh and Briana, hosting parties, hanging out with friends – and I kept involved with my Sons of the Desert tent, collecting autographs, and watching movies. The following is a synopsis of some of the memorable events (at least for me) from that time period as recorded in my little pocket planner…culminating with one massive Big Seven concert as we rolled into Summer. Read the rest of this entry »
The classic 1983 film A Christmas Story has become ingrained in my mind – and I’m sure on the minds of anyone else under the age of 40 – as a necessary staple of the holiday season… especially now that it seems to play on a continuous loop for the entire month of December. In fact if you looked up ‘holiday film’ in the dictionary, you might find a picture of the leg lamp. As part of our Ohio tour, on July 27, 2008 Bob and I visited the primary house in the slums of Cleveland that was used in the film as the home of the Parker family.
Betty Lou Gerson was a character actress who could be seen in numerous televsion shows throughout the 1950’s and 60’s – most notably in one of my favorites The Twilight Zone, in which she starred in the episode Ring-A-Ding Girl. But Ms. Gerson really sealed her fame when she was cast to voice the evil vixen Cruella de Vil (To see her is to take a sudden chill) in Walt Disney’s 1961 animated feature 101 Dalmations. 
Tippi Hedren is best known for her role as Melanie Daniels in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 thriller The Birds…and little else. Although Hitch tried to make her a big star by casting her as leading role in this film as well as the lesser-acclaimed Marnie, it never really happened for her. She was quickly relegated to low-budget films and fleeting television appearances (but did also star in A Countess From Hong Kong, notable as the last film of Charlie Chaplin).
On Friday, October 7, Bob, Jimmy, and I headed from Bob’s place in San Bernardino toward Las Vegas. The main reason: to see the Penn & Teller live show at the Rio, which I covered in a previous posting found