Do you have a "Claim to Fame"?

Ted Williams was a people person and every year at the Hines Civic Auditorium (in "Boston) he did fly casting exhibitions at the Sports Show.

I worked at the auditorium, so I got to meet a lot of high profile types.

I remember standing in line for four hours to get Pavroti's autograph. Another really nice human being.

Teddy Ballgame!
I am in awe.

My family lived in one of those large, older apartment buildings in Chicago in the early 60's and next door lived a smalltime gangster named Nolan Mack who was gunned down by the police on the Stevenson Expressway. He was a cool guy, friendly with all of the children in the neighborhood, let the boys wash his Caddy in the alley behind the building and his apartment was beautiful, the living room was all white, the carpeting, furniture, a shiny baby grand piano and a big blond named Audrey, who was just as nice as he.

They ran a shot of his bullet-riddled Caddy in the newspaper. I was only 7 or 8 but remember thinking how tacky.

Where do I start?

1. Bear
2. 4th cousin was a famous preacher
3. Met Jimmy Carter in the Oval Office
4. My grandparents vacationed with the Kelloggs and Pennys for years
5. Had a wonderful breakfast with Jerry Clower
6. Dad toured with /opened for Marty Robbins
7. Aunt owns a theater in Branson. Uncle helped develop Branson
8. Had a letter published in Country magazine
9. Won numerous state fairs showing horses
10. Attended Doc Severonsons daughters wedding
11. My family has a castle in Scotland

hmm, thinking...

Saying this in awwww......."DAMN!"



Well Reyn has accused me of being a big tease, but my claims to fame have usually involved controversy....lol

Lets see, Have had several letters published in our local county newspaper a few years back to that halted one Sheriff in his tracks of soliciting the citizens of our county for donations.

I explained in detail that everything our Sheriffs Department was confiscating was going home with the deputies for their own personal use instead of going up for auction like it should have been to raise these funds they were in such a dire need for. If they had went to auction, there would be no need for begging for donations. Would there?

What pissed the Sheriff off so badly is that I had details, and knew what I was talking about. Lets just say he wasn't my closest friend after that for a long time....

The ads were pulled the day after my letter appeared.

The next letter appeared after random threat letters started to appear in our mailbox, along with a few dozen others in our area. We were being threatened about having "Running dogs" and how cruel it was to use these animals for hunting, etc.

What these fools didn't think of ahead of time was that they were not using the federal government to distribute these "newsletters", they had were hand-delivered without postage, which is a big NO NO. Where they called us criminal tresspassers, targeted us for animal cruelty, along other things that was absurd, I took the mighty pen and aimed it at them. Once my article hit the newspaper I not only explained their indiscretions , but pointed out it made them the criminal, that what we were doing was fully legal.

Those "newsletters" stopped after that.


Then...years ago, one of my cousins was married to a man that was Roger Clinton's best friend. Yep, Dear Old Bill's little dopeheaded brother...

Another cousin is best friends with one of Arkansas's Senators. The funny thing is, she just about married him, but they backed out of the wedding and have remained best friends for years now.

And...my daddy come to find out, built the back end of a 57' Chevy Cadillac some years back that was used for a stage prop for Alan Jackson's tour.....

And...After having way too much to drink while fishin' on Degray Lake, I got to meet Hank Williams Jr. LOL No kidding here, that was halarious. Were in one boat fishin', and he's in another with his guide fishin'...and they hollered at us and wanted to know what we were catchin', how many......we motored on over, and there he sat....... Talk about me being big eyed!

And Charlie Rich is in my family tree, along with three former U.S. Presidents, Ulysses S. Grant, Millard Fillmore, and Grover Cleveland. (I come back and had to add this one), also have Col. Lyman Wight and Gideon H. Carter early leaders of the Mormon Church.

Grover Cleveland is in your family tree?

HAHAHA! You are related to Bear!

It's distant, so don't freak out or anything.

Now THAT'S a hoot! MMS and the Bear are cuzzins???

HA! Its distant on my side too....they are all sons of Aunts...way, way, waaaaaaaaaay down the family line......Well then, he's probably kin to Ulysses S. Grant also, because they shared a Grandfather through the Porter side, and Fillmore come in on the White side....of the family.

Besides...when we get 15, 20 or even 30 lines back the odds of being related somehow, even to the same tree gets slimmer.......

I don't remember - I was too young. I think my picture was in the paper.

Whoops, that should've been, the odds get greater of finding distance relatives that are linked somehow or the other...

Wow, that makes you practically related to Shewolf!


That must have been quite the party!


Good job! It took a lot of guts to do that!

Stuck up? Moi? Coulda happened. But I'm remembering taking the test I had to pass to get that card. My head was not quite at the level of the library desk. Held the reading matter in my hand. Lots of big words. I remember feeling very focused. Did it. My father was with me. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Good woik, kid."

I didn't think to mention that I've written a few books (which have been published). And that a thread I started on abuzz was published in the NY Times.

And my first cousin on my father's side was first cousin to Mel Torme. Met him once. My first cousin on my mother's side was first cousin to Princess Ticklefeather of Bozo the Clown fame. Met Doris a bunch of times.

Wow! I never had to take a test to get a library card. I bet it was a REAL library, too. Not like the ones we have in Raleigh that are basically some classics and pop fiction, but one of those where you could actually do research.

We had a real library when I was growing up that I could get lost in all day and be perfectly content.

So, if I wanted to read one of your books would it be under "R" or "B"?

Yes, squinney, it was a real library, with a reference section. The whole megilla.

Two of the books I wrote are textbooks. Not exactly the kind of thing you'd grab if you felt like reading. The third book I wrote is a style manual for a particular organization. Not even remotely readable, but referred to daily.

You wanna look for one of my books? B would be a waste of time. R would take a very long time. Try M.

Well, I've met a lot of celebrities, usually through work or family or friends, nothing re tooting my own horn about. What about me specifically?

Damn. Dredges mind...

oh, yes, I was in the Evanston Review in a photograph of me staring at some fellow carving wooden clogs, say, 1954.

Had a photo in the LA Times Travel section as photo of the week.

Thinking...

Had a few paintings in the local museum..

Dredges....

Survived a piano recital in sixth grade..




But on to the good stuff. Maybe, just maybe, Roberta's uncle and my dad crossed paths. Wasn't the Howdy Doody Show in the RKO building or the building RKO was in on 106th Street? My dad worked in there as a director of commercials, 1949-50, and probably as a film editor. (Yes, I saw the show once, and I was in one of those commercials, part of small classroom of kids for a Toni commercial.)

I think my uncle came along a little later. The cuckoo clock opening wasn't part of the show when it first started. But it's very possible that they crossed paths. How much commercial television production was there back then? By today's standards, not much. Probably even less in the area of animation.

Small world. This thread is proving that.

I was interviewed by the local news about a tornado coming through my trailer park once. Well, it wasn't my trailer park - it was my papaw's. And it didn't really hurt the trailers but it did put a few cars from the junk yard in the sewer moat. I just told them it sounded like a freight train and was over before I knew it...

Well, very impressive! Fiction / non-fiction?

At last! A real celebrity!