Laurel and Hardywood Day 1: Sony Pictures Studios and The Egyptian
Friday, February 27th, 2015
It had been a fun couple of days with Jimmy and David at Disney and visiting the M*A*S*H location, but the real reason I had made the trek to California this time was to attend Laurel and Hardywood, the 19th International Convention of the Sons of the Desert. It had been a series of long roads, starting with the two-year road it had been for Bob since he bid on and was given the 2014 convention on behalf of his tent 45 Minutes from Hollywood. For the most part he did 90% of the work in coordinating the convention, but I and others had had our roles too, and over the course of the past two years, I had been pretty busy with convention website updates, sizing photos, writing and editing text, and managed the autograph fundraiser. Read the rest of this entry »
Almost everyone who remembers the TV series Little House on the Prairie will remember the Ingalls girls Laura and Mary. Most will even remember the younger sister Carrie, although her lines of dialogue were fleeting, even when she became older. But even I didn’t remember the fourth child Grace until I recently re-visited the series. She was of course based on the real-life Ingalls child, the fifth and youngest of the brood. (A brother was born between Carrie and Grace who died as an infant). Like the character of her older sister Carrie, Grace was actually portrayed by twin sisters, in this case Brenda and Wendi Turnbaugh. 
In about five years, I’ll be able to say that I’ve been part of the Sons of the Desert organization for 5/6ths of my life. That is pretty crazy in itself. As a lifelong devotee and student of the club, I’ve gotten to know five names pretty darn well: John McCabe, the club’s founder, and Al Kilgore, 
I always love a nice trip down memory lane. Usually this involves a TV show or movie that I watched as a kid or young teen, but occasionally it moves into my young teen music years. I really wasn’t a full-fledged glam metal addict until about 1987. Specifically I moved from a passion for Super 8 home movies into heavy metal cassette tapes. Come to think of it, there was a never a time when some form of media didn’t occupy my obsessive nature. But I digress. 
I figured it would happen someday, but I didn’t necessarily think it would happen this soon. Surely the biggest highlight of the early 2010’s was becoming a grandfather before I turned the ripe old age of 40. His birth is not the only thing that characterized this half-decade but I’m pretty sure it was the most impactful. True bachelorhood set in near the beginning of this time period, as Ashleigh was away from home more than she was there and then ultimately moved out and got her own home and started her own (at times rocky) family life.