St. Pete Beach, Florida 1977: One of My Favorite Vacations Ever
Saturday, July 26th, 2008
One of the best and most memorable vacations that I ever took came during the Summer of 1977. As an impressionable lad of five, I’m quite convinced that it was this trip that solidified my love of Florida, Disney World, and vacations in general. Although I can’t be 100%certain of the dates of this trip, two photos from it were given by my parents to my Grandma Range. She dated the back of each photo as June 6, 1977. Although each photo was likely taken on a different day of the trip (one was at Disney and the other was out to eat at the Kapok Tree with Ira and Mildred), I have no reason to doubt that this was a valid date during the trip. Read the rest of this entry »
It had been eight years since I had been on the west coast, but it had been even longer since I had seen Penn & Teller perform live, ten years having passed since I last saw them locally at the 
As I walked the ramp from the airplane to customs on the morning of Saturday, July 5, 2008, the first thought that entered my mind was that Germany must be a dunghole. The whole area had been ripped apart for construction and it looked like I had just entered a third-world country. As it happens, this was the only area of the country that made me feel this way. Of the eight European countries I visited, Germany was the nicest of all. Ahead of me were two weeks of traveling via planes, trains, and automobiles (as well as boats, taxis, buses, and subways) throughout the European continent. I had finally popped the pond after 36 years of remaining on the North American continent. 
In the television world, there are a group of sitcoms that I strongly consider to be my shows. Some are obvious, some are not, and a few are very obscure. Among the not-so-obscure are the four major TV series starring one of my all-time comic idols Bob Newhart. The earliest of these series is The Bob Newhart Show, the story of a Chicago psychologist trying to survive amidst a bevy of crazies. Peter Bonerz played the role of Jerry Robinson, orthodontist inhabiting the same office building of Bob’s. Mr. Bonerz also made cameos on two of Newhart’s later series Bob and George & Leo.