The First Lady Who Never Was
Sunday, June 14th, 2009
Jane Wyman has an incredible and illustrious career that included an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as a deaf-mute rape victim in Johnny Belinda, three Oscar nominations for The Yearling, The Blue Veil, and The Magnificent Obsession, the Walt Disney classic Pollyanna, a starring role in the Academy Award for Best Picture winner The Lost Weekend, and even a role in the Alfred Hitchcock film Stage Fright. After her retirement from the films, she even made a notable return in the early 1980’s in the primetime soap Falcon Crest. Read the rest of this entry »
No, this title doesn’t refer to my endless parade of wives – or girlfriends – or anything of the sort. I know I’ll take some flack for this, but I must always be honest on this website. I have never seen a single episode of the Tony Randall and Jack Klugman series The Odd Couple. Before you get too upset, rest assured that I now have the first two seasons of the show in my possession and will get cracking here sometime soon. I have in fact seen the Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau film that pre-dated the sitcom. 
Many uneducated laymen may think that Rose Marie’s career began with her role as wisecracking Sally Rogers in The Dick Van Dyke Show, but in fact her original moniker was Baby Rose Marie, performing in vaudeville, radio, and short and feature films. One short bore the eponymous title Baby Rose Marie the Child Wonder. She even starred in the W.C. Fields vehicle International House. 
OK, there aren’t many gals who I’ve known in my life that would take too kindly to being strangled by me, as seen at left in a photo taken in early 2000. But Sarah Boian was obviously quite good-natured and good-humored. In fact, she was one of my very favorite people to work with. I began working in the front office with Sarah at the beginning of 1998 when I first transferred to the Kroger on Forrer Blvd. This store closed a month later and we were transferred to the new Dorothy Lane Store. For the next two years, I had the pleasure of working with Sarah in that store until I transferred to Xenia in 2000. 
Okay, that title was corny. But that doesn’t make it any less true. Of all the national Top 40 radio announcers I have enjoyed, Casey Kasem surely ranks at the top. (Can’t really think of any others, but that is beside the point). I do in fact have really swell memories of my Sunday morning paper route with my Mom or my Dad, listening to Casey Kasem’s top 100 or top 40 countdown, whichever it may be, and his soothing voice which blended with the aroma of my parents’ morning coffee as we puttered along dispensing the Dayton Daily News at the crack of dawn.