Of significant importance in defining the early part of 1995 is the role that my editorship of Dante’s Info played in my life at this time. Lisa and I hadn’t been together too long before she was thrust into my other life with the Sons of the Desert, through forced attendance at our meetings and my constant involvement with creating our tent’s newsletter Dante’s Info.
I had already created ten issues of Dante’s via the cut and paste method. That is, I would cut (with scissors) and paste the writings and photos (with paste) onto a master sheet and then make photocopies before stapling into booklet form. There will be more details about that at another time, but beginning in 1995, I began to create these issues by computer – with the constant help and supervision of my Dad, who actually purchased the computer.
You have to understand that in this time period, not everyone on Earth had a computer, so this was all new to us and presented a daunting challenge. After the Sons convention in New York and meeting my friend Bill Cappello, I had begun to delve into the area of research and putting together some impressive articles that captured the attention of many fellow L&H buffs. Now with this new capability to create them ‘electronically’, my vision became to distribute the ultimate Laurel and Hardy fanzine.
My Dad was living on Gainborough in Kettering at this time. This was relatively close to our Woodman Park apartment, so I spent numerous hours over there working on the computer. Yes, once in a while I got caught up in a game of Minesweeper and before I knew it, the sun was setting. But for the most part, I concentrated on the newsletter.
Although I wrote this entire issue – the first in this new format – my Dad deserves a lot of credit for the design, logo, and layout. And although he can’t type, he actually did hunt and peck his way through some of this issue.
The material was top-rate. I had created a timeline of issue ‘themes’ that I followed for nearly four years. This issue was the second part of a Babes in Toyland tribute and included a full-color center spread of a Babes lobby card (seen at left) as the icing on the cake – but the real centerpiece was an article I wrote based on an interview with Laurel and Hardy co-star Beverly Crane. She had never been discovered by anyone, anywhere, but my new friend Bill tracked her down and she happened to live very close to me (more about that at another time). So here I had my very first real exclusive. It also was reproduced and became my first article to be published in the more widespread publication Intra-Tent Journal.
We had not yet gotten our apartment sufficently cleaned to host a meeting so the early meetings of 1995 were held at member Charles Sexton’s house (Jan. 29 – a program of shorts – up against the Super Bowl) and my Dad’s place (Feb. 26 featuring General Spanky and Mar. 26 featuring Babes in Toyland).
This era of Sons involvement, along with my relationship with Lisa and my job at Beavercreek Kroger all helped define my life during this time period…more later…
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