Good morning, al!
Dar Friend BK, best of luck with the reading today. That's a great story about the Li'l Abner volumes. I only own the two volumes with the Broadway show and the film, and I'd love to have them all.
Insofar as I feel like a civilized individual, or can credit someone for being a major influence on my life, I have to thank my Aunt Jean, my Mother's older sister. Around 1950, after several miscarriages, she was given a hysterectomy, so she and my Uncle Harold never had children. Shortly thereafter, my brother Tom and I became her surrogate children, and we spent between 12-20 weekends a year with them. This went on until I left home for college, and I credit her for so many things, from getting to live performances, to knowing what all the silverware at a table was used for.
In the early 1970s, when I was waffling around Southwestern Ohio, trying to determine my place in the cosmos, she abruptly dropped me from her calendar, most likely angry at my confusion and lack of career goals, and in 1976 she died of a stroke she suffered while trying to get her car out of a snow drift. At that point there was a wide gap in our affections never to be resolved. I like to think she would have been happy that I finally landed in New York and I know she would have loved an excuse to come and visit. She always loved live theatre, and she really loved to shop.
