James Madison and Me
Sunday, September 30th, 2007
James Madison was our fourth United States President from 1801 – 1809 and the primary author, hence the title “Father of the U.S. Constitution.” Among his other achievements were the co-authorship of The Federalist Papers and the creation of the first ten amendments to the constition, better known as The Bill of Rights. Quite a fascinating and well-educated man, Madison’s life both began and ended in Virginia, a state I recently toured and was able to visit several of the important locations of his life…all carefully and excitedly detailed below. Read the rest of this entry »
It was clear that I had begun to get a bit cocky with my autograph collecting habits as 1985 drew to a close. I had had some great success stories during my first year of solid ‘by-mail-request’ autograph collecting. I was being led down the primrose path that most stars, no matter how big, would respond to autograph requests. But as the results of my final Christmas break push of eight autographs requests would prove, it wasn’t always so easy. 
Jackie Davis was another one of the original members of the silent Our Gang. Appearing in nineteen of the movies as the first tough kid of the Rascals, Jack’s older sister Mildred eventually would marry silent screen legend Harold Lloyd. Lloyd thought that it would better for Jack to get a good education and sent him off to military school. The education paid off and Jack Davis, known as John H. Davis, M.D. at the time that he made an appearance at the Our Gang reunion in 1980, became quite a success. 
I seemed to build my collection of John Voldstad autographs in small steps. John Voldstad portrayed the second silent Daryl in one of my all-time favorite television series Newhart. When he first made his appearance at a Hollywood Collectors Show, all he had for sale were some small 4″ x 5″ portraits. So that was what I was stuck with adding to my collection. But for $5.00, it wasn’t a bad deal. Later on, he returned along with his Larry, Daryl, and Daryl cohort William Sanderson and Tony Papenfuss and I was able to get the complete signed cast shot as shown