The Terrible Catsafterme

While not a complete Star Wars junkie, I am a fan of the franchise, so when the opportunity presents itself, I generally snap up any autographs of members of the cast of both the original films and the later prequels. On Monday, December 8, 1997, I got the chance to meet two members of the Star Wars family at the Bookery Fantasy comic book store in my hometown of Fairborn, Ohio: Kenny Baker, the dwarf actor who was the performer inside the R2-D2 costume in all six of the films, and John Hollis, who played Lobot in The Empire Strikes Back. At the time, I had no idea that Hollis was Lando Calrissian’s cyborg aide – but that didn’t stop my from purchasing one of his photos. Read the rest of this entry »

Phylicia Rashad will forever be remembered as being the wife of Bill Cosby…even though they were never married. I began watching Cosby’s groundbreaking series The Cosby Show when it first debuted in 1984, back in the day when she was still going by her maiden name Phylicia Ayers-Allen. Her named changed, naturally enough, when she was married to her third husband, NFL wide reciever and sportcaster Ahmad Rashad. Fresh from the stage, The Cosby Show was her first major screen work and she was called upon by Bill Cosby once again to be his screen wife when he began his new series Cosby in 1996, four years after the former series ended. And I might add that she starred in the pre-show of the Dinosaur ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Read the rest of this entry »

Denise was a bit luckier than I was. I received my first black eye when I was only nine months old and I took a tumble down a long flight of stairs inside my walker at my Grandma Murphy’s house. Denise didn’t get hers until she was two years old. Mine was a bit bloodier and entailed stitches in my lips and missing pieces of ear.  But Denise’s story is a bit more colorful. Mostly purple. It starts a little something like this: I hit my sister in the face with a baseball bat…

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I was nine years old as I entered fourth grade at Fairbrook Elementary school on August 25, 1981, and at the age of five, Denise was joining me at school for the first time. We would be making the daily trudge to the Mulhern residence where the bus would pick up Denise, Kenny Carroll, and me and transport us to school, where we would each go to our separate classes. Mine was taught by Mrs. Smith, one of the oldest teachers in the school – and certainly one of the best. She could be both stern and kind and I think gained the respect of more students than any other teacher I ever had. Denise had Mrs. Ferguson, who had not been there when I was in kindergarten. Read the rest of this entry »