I remember seeing " Lassie come home " as a kid . . . it was a tear-jerker, but a great kid's movie . . . at the FOX Theatre in Tucson, AZ . . . . Incidently, the Fox just recently spent 6 million dollars or something like that refurbushing the great theatre . . . The FOX was the best grandest movie house in town at the time . . . ( And STILL ONE of the best ) .  Tucson, up until 1953, when I graduated from Tucson Hi, was just beginning the urban sprawl . . . It was only about 250,000 population at the time and you still almost knew everybody or KNEW somebody that knew somebody that was anybody . . . in that town.

Bill Freyse, cartoonist for " Our Boarding House " lived in town, and his daughter, Lynn Freyse was one year behind me in high school . . . The beauty later became Miss Arizona . . went to Hollywood and starred in Ted Key's " HAZEL "  TV show . . She went under the name of Borden and she was Hazel's boss.

Other cartoonists that lived in Tucson was a cartoonist, Frank Edgarton that drew Rex Morgan, M.D., AND Dick Calkins Jr., son of Dick Calkins  ( who drew FLASH GORDON at one time ) . . .  The Junior Calkins had a strip for awhile called ZACKY WACK   around 52-53.   I remember . . it appeared in the Tucson papers and then I never saw it after that.

Around 1970 Fred Rhoads was still drawing Sad Sack and he moved into town . . . unfortunately, I never got to meet any of them like a damn fool.

At one time Michael O'Shea, Virginia Mayo and Elizabeth Taylor had homes in Tucson.  And, John Lennon would drop in once in awhile to see his girlfriend . . . remember the song of his . . . something about " Jo-Jo in Tucson, Arizona . . . "

I remember back about that time the radio disk jockeys wou rumor that John Lennon was town and was spotted in some mall . . .

And of course Joe Bonano lived on the same street as my mother on Elm Street, about a mile east of her.

The Bonanos would meet at some ranch out of town when his buddies would come to visit him from New York.


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" I think it must be written somewhere that the virtues of the mother will be visited on the children. "

Charles Dickens, 1812 - 1870
English Novelist

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" Love children especially for, like angels, they too are sinless and they live to soften and purify our hearts and, as it were, to guide us. "

Fedor Dostoevsky, 1821 - 1881
Russian Writer

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" My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. "

Mark Twain, 1835 - 1910
American Writer

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