The House on Echo Hill and Labor Day ’73
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
By the Summer of 1973, my parents had decided that although our house on John Glenn, which we had been renting from my Grandma Range, had served our little family well, it was time to move on to the next chapter in our lives. They didn’t care all that much for the area where the John Glenn house was located and wanted a bit more room both inside and outside. They had seen a listing for a nice little white house built in 1953, located in the Country Acres sub-division in the up-and-coming suburb of Beavercreek, Ohio. It had a spacious yard perfect for tending a nice, garden – and sending their kid out to play. It even had room to add on an additional garage where Mom and Dad could store their growing number of cars. In short, the house (seen above with our green ’65 Volkswagon Squareback and Oscar’s Buick in the driveway) was the perfect place to start. Read the rest of this entry »
P.J. Soles was an attractive young actress who made her mark in several notable movies of the the mid-1970’s through the early-1980’s. Among the memorable films in which she appeared were Brian DePalma’s Carrie, the classic John Travolta TV movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, and Private Benjamin. The roles that I knew best though were her portrayal of Lynda, the doomed high schooler who had a penchant for saying “Totally!” in the classic horror flick Halloween – and her part as MP Stella Hansen in the Bill Murray comedy Stripes (above right), which I used to watch repeatedly in the early 80’s. Also noteworthy was that she had a part in one episode of one of my favorite sitcoms Cheers in 1984. 
I must confess that as I look at some of the photos from the 1986 Valley Forge Sons of the Desert convention, I get a little bit annoyed at myself for not spending more time with my family. As I was fourteen years old, it might be tempting for me to say that I thought I was a little too cool to hang out with them – but the fact is that they simply weren’t geeky enough for me. Whereas Mom, Dad, and Denise were hanging out together and snapping photos of Denise mingling with the celebrities (and the great family shot at left, which I missed out on), I was off alone hob-knobbing with the stars and club ‘bigwigs.’ So while my goal at that time didn’t involve getting pictures with any of them, Denise ended up with a whole slew of great shots. Dumb kid. 
I posed this question in the last California posting: who would have thought that a visit to the Playboy Mansion would not be the big story of Monday morning, October 26, 2008? Jimmy had no sooner pulled out through the gates of the Playboy Mansion, that Dick Bann was making a startling exclamation from the front seat of the car: “Look…that’s Brian Wilson!” Now how Dick could pick out Brian freakin’ Wilson as we pulled up behind him as he was taking a walk (away from us) is beyond me. God Only Knows. I still have visions of Dick not spotting him, as Jimmy, Dick, and I obliviously drove past one of the most iconic figures in the history of pop music. 
It was rather difficult to be gung-ho for our last morning and afternoon at Disneyland Paris after the long and treacherous day of walking that we had experienced the day before. Nevertheless, troopers that we were, The Wileys, David, and I all got up early and traipsed over for the morning breakfast buffet bright and early on Tuesday, July 15, 2008. This time it was located in a different banquet area than the previous morning. The food was the same though – and just as delicious.