Dante’s Info #13
Saturday, November 10th, 2007
I really wanted to make Dante’s Info #13 something special. Despite the unlucky number in the series (I denoted it as issue NUMBER 13! – exclamation included), my desire was for this really to be a breakout issue. Beginning with this edition, my Dad and I were now exclusively creating these on his computer as a Quark Express document, no longer relying on independent scans of the photos being made to paste into the issue before it was sent to the printer. Fresh back from my Hollywood and Florida trip with tons of new material in hand, I thought that this issue could really put me on the map of fine Sons of the Desert publications. Read the rest of this entry »
I first met Matt Bohlander at the Church of the Brethren Regional Youth Conference (RYC) held at Manchester College in Indiana during the early part of April 1990. Matt was the youngest of the Bohlander brothers and I had seen him around Camp Woodland Altars several times in the past. His oldest brother Chris was actually a counselor at camp my very first year there in 1981. His brother Brian had been a counselor both of my years at Eco-Adventures, and was actually my counselor the second year. My friend Lee introduced me to Matt and we got to talking about music while stealing away to smoke cigarettes throughout the weekend. 
It was at the Hollywood ’80 Sons of the Desert convention when I first became acquainted with the flight of steps that Laurel and Hardy encountered in their 1932 Acadamy Award winning film The Music Box. This short film had been the first one that I had ever seen from my favorite comedy team so I was well aware of the significance of where I was standing – on the corner of Vendome and Del Monte in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles on that warm summer afternoon, Thursday, July 31, 1980. Although I was only eight years old, I can distinctly remember being at this location, walking up and down the 133 steps, milling about, oohing and aahing, and then pressing on to our next locations.