Hardy Boys & Girls
February 21st, 2013
If the Hardy Boys series from the 1970’s didn’t exude that timeless 1970’s feel, I would find it pretty difficult to sit through. Most of my memories of the show are relegated to seeing the cast routinely featured in the teen magazies of the era, the one’s I was purchasing because they featured KISS. Truth be told, I actually prefer the Hardy Boys serials from the Mickey Mouse Club that starred Tim Considine and Tommy Kirk. In all, there were five series that featured our favorite (well, YOUR favorite) mystery-solvers. But the one I’m going to focus on is the second most recent, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries that ran for three seasons from 1977-1979, right in the thick of the disco era. Read the rest of this entry »
The second half of the New England road trip began on Wednesday, July 11, 2012. Bob and I had seen and experienced a great deal and it seemed like it had been forever since we began the road trip. But even though there was as much time on the road ahead of us as there was behind it, I could feel the pressure that time was pushing on us, knowing how much we still had left to see as we began the descent toward the end. Nevertheless, it was nothing worth stewing about so we pressed on as best as we could, beginning with the sights in Hyde Park, where we had just spent the night. 
I must caution you that if you’re going to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey, ignore the hype that surrounds it and don’t expect some over-the-top exciting science fiction extravaganza. That was what I did the first time, and I came away sorely disappointed wondering why nothing exciting ever happened in this film. Years later, I re-visited it, now knowing that there was nothing earth-shattering that took place in the film, but still knowing full-well that it had been critically acclaimed. After this second viewing, I came away loving the film – amazed at its depth and beauty, understanding how cool the special effects really were, even though on the surface there appeared to be none. 
Poltergeist is one of the greatest of all horror films, because it gets the bulk of its scares from general creepiness, jump-inducing surprises, and horrifying imagery. It seldom relies on any sort of gore or violence – and even managed to pull off a PG rating, so I could justify showing this film to Ashleigh and Briana when they were quite young. But there is one scene that involves a bit of gore, and it is that disgusting, disturbing scene that ultimately comes to mind whenever I think about the film Poltergeist. As you might guess from the photo above, it is the scene in which the young parapsychologist Marty hallucinates that he rips off his own face in front of a mirror. 
Although there are great many reasons that I like to take short excursions to California, the dates on which I take them always correlate to one of the Hollywood Shows. This gives me the opportunity to continue to build on my ever-increasing number of celebrity encounters, which has become my equivalent of collecting baseball cards. Naturally, the more celebrities in attendance, the greater the value in making the effort to get there. Of course I enjoy these shows for the most part, but like any hobby, they take money and effort – which can sometimes be exhausting. So once the show is over, what I really look forward is the time I get to spend with my California friends doing a variety of activities, the most common being an excursion to Disneyland. So if the title didn’t tip you off, that is mostly what you’ll be getting in this posting…