Virginia 1973 and a Stone’s Throw Away From My First Presidential Gravesite
Saturday, June 21st, 2008
Until just moments ago, I was all excitedly prepared to tell you how my first Presidential grave was not who I always thought it was (Nixon), but actually George Washington during a visit to Mount Vernon when I was just one year old. My Dad thought that I had also probably seen Woodrow Wilson’s grave in the National Cathedral during the visit. It was all plausible considering I had gone along on the trip and there were slides of both Mt. Vernon and the Cathedral in the set that my Dad took. But then Mom dropped the bomb on me: I never actually made it into Washington D.C. in 1973. I didn’t actually get there until 1998. Read the rest of this entry »
The storms that hit the area the night before while we were staying at the condom-laced Motel Six in McKinney, Texas just outside Dallas brought the cold weather back to the area on the morning of Friday, April 4, 2008, our last full day of the trip. This meant that it also brought back my ugly orange sweatshirt which I had only brought along to use in Dayton, but was now donning for the second time of the week. I had no choice, it was downright cold that morning! After leaving our motel, Bob stopped for a Krispy Kreme and I foolishly declined a donut. 
By Thursday, April 3, 2008, Bob and I had completely butchered our Texas itinerary – but in a good way. Somehow our wrong turn earlier in the week had forced us to redefine our plan of action and we were way ahead of schedule. Thursday had been slated for a day in Austin, which we had completed the day before. So we grabbed a quick (and small) bite from the motel’s continental breakfast and headed the short distance back into Waco, to pick up some of the places that had also been tentativly scheduled to possibly hit after Austin. 
For a kid who considered himself the world’s biggest Laurel and Hardy fan – although you could probably count the number of those in the world on one finger – the 1986 Fifth International Sons of the Desert convention held in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania from Friday, July 25 – Wednesday, July 30, was a virtual Garden of Eden. It had been four years since I had been to a Sons convention since our family opted to skip the one in 1984 held in Ulverston and London, England. Too expensive for my parents’ taste. Four years when you are growing from a ten-year old to a fourteen-year old seems like forever. And during that time, my interest in L&H had blossomed and flourished to a near-obsession.