The Terrible Catsafterme

My friend Bob and I had been traveling for the bulk of the day, having journeyed from Reno and through Lake Tahoe. After being on the road for the past five days, it was kind of nice to arrive in Sacramento, where we could rest our heads in the same spot for the next four nights. We arrived around 4pm on Wednesday, June 16, 2010, at the Holiday Inn Capitol Plaza, which was about as a convenient location that one could have found. It was situated right between a shopping mall complex and the entrance to the Old Sacramento historic district. I was pretty exhausted from the past few days, so I had no qualms about retiring to our room once we checked in, getting on the internet for a bit, and then trying to doze for a few seconds. Read the rest of this entry »

After Erin and her family left Ohio on Wednesday, June 9, 2010, I had just a few nights to scramble together my packing necessities before embarking on my third week-long adventure of the year. The culmination of this trip would be the 17th International Sons of the Desert convention in Sacramento, which was scheduled to begin on Wednesday, June 16. Bob and I had originally planned to begin in Seattle and head southward to the convention. The main reason for this was to visit with John Babcock, the last surviving Canadian soldier from World War 1. He was living in Spokane, but unfortunately, although we had pre-arranged a meeting, he passed away in February. Read the rest of this entry »

…Giddy London, home of the brash, outrageous and free…This is just one of many songs by Morrissey or The Smiths that mention places in or around London, places that I kept seeing or hearing throughout our stay. A few more examples:…all around Sloane Square…3am Northside Clapham Common…Train heave on to Euston…the Piccadilly palare was just silly slang…Turns out, all of these places are real places, not just song lyrics. I found this out as I finally got a chance to actually tour London, where our hotel and home base had been for the past week. Read the rest of this entry »

You are probably wondering why the introductory photo in this posting shows Bob and me at a limousine rental desk. I can tell you that this spot had great significance and to find out why, you must read on. But while you are being held captive in rapt suspense, allow me to fill you in on the events of Monday, April 26, and Tuesday, April 27, 2010 (with a little bit of Saturday, May 1, thrown in for good measure). My home base for these two days was Bob’s house in San Bernardino, California. Read the rest of this entry »

One of my big regrets about not attending the Sons of the Desert conventions in 1984 and 1998, respectively in London and Birmingham, England, was that I had missed out on the pilgrimages to see the birthplace of Stan Laurel in Ulverston. This became even more of a void when I finally got see the place of Oliver Hardy’s birth at the 2006 convention. My friend Bob had never been to Stan’s birthplace either, so I didn’t have too hard of a time of convincing him. It was the how to get there that presented the problem. Read the rest of this entry »