A Girl Named Rocky: Meeting June Foray
Sunday, November 30th, 2008
June Foray was certainly best known for her vocal portrayal of Rocket J. Squirrel in the classic Jay Ward cartoon series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. So yes, as I said, Rocky was a girl. But she also did regular girl voices too, like Natasha in the same cartoon series. But the more I found out about other projects in which she has participated, the more I think that her career path has roughly followed the path of ‘things I like.’ Read the rest of this entry »
I first met Alicia Keeton when we began attending Ankeney Junior High during our seventh grade year in 1984. I can’t remember the time or the place, or which classes we might have had together – if any. But what I do recall vividly was that Alicia was not only very pretty (as seen at right with the high hair of 1989), but very nice to everyone with whom she came in contact. That was rather uncharacteristic for most pretty girls that age – who seemed to be anything but nice to geeks like me.
I must say that Monday, October 6, 2008 was shaping up to be one of the best days of the year – if not my life. The first dream of my ‘dream come true tour’ had come true that morning: a visit to the 
The Wileys and I had gotten a fairly good night’s sleep in our separate rooms in Lyon, France and were up and ‘at ’em’ bright and early the morning of Wednesday, July 16, 2008. The hotel had been nothing to write home about, but the breakfast was once again outstanding. In fact, I became less impressed with the Disney breakfast after seeing virtually the same layout in the breakfast room of the tiny Campanile hotel. Lunchmeat, sausages, eggs, cheeses, breads, you name it. I was a little later at getting down to breakfast than the Wileys so I dined alone. I was so excited with the food that I left my water bottle at the hotel before I rushed out with my luggage to meet them in the lobby. 
Buddy Ebsen is best known for his characterization of Jed Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies, followed closely by his role as Barnaby Jones in the TV drama of the same name. I frankly never cared for either of them. What interests me the most about Buddy Ebsen was a role that he didn’t play…that of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (as seen at left). Originally cast in the role, he had to withdraw after he became deathly ill from breathing in the silver powder-based make-up which the Tin Man was required to wear. Due to time constraints during the filming, he was replaced by Jack Haley…and the make-up was replaced by a liquid-based substitute.