Buddy's Blog

I didn’t tell you, but Loinfruit drew a birthday card for me. He even made the envelope:

And on the card he drew pictures on every possible surface:

Loinfruit is 36.

Speaking of my acting career, this page is from my ’61 Yearbook. By the way, I went to Manatee High School in Bradenton, Florida.

In the top left photo there’s my friend Larry Jerome, and that’s U-No-Hoo on the right. Larry played some old major. The play was The Monkey’s Paw. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a horror story by the English writer, W. W. Jacobs. There were three plays, one by each high school class. And guess who got the Best Actor Award! I remember standing there waiting. I thought I was going to get some money or something.  All I got was a hearty handshake. Remember the W.C. Fields movie, The Bank Dick?

And now that I finally finished that Sundays book, I’m going to start making videos again. Geeze! Maybe I’ll have a whole new career. I could be the new Cary Grant Or Clark Gable or somebody famous.

Two days ago Dave H sent that link to the 1957 DeSoto Belvedere for sale. I mentioned to him that I starred in my high school junior play Belvedere. The page is from my yearbook. I played the husband, Mr. King, and Peter Rowe played Belvedere. I recall that I had 236 lines. I only remember my first line. I was washing dishes and singing I’m  Forever Washing Dishes to the tune of I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.

That’s Peter on the right bottom. He was some character. He used to drive me nuts in school. You can tell by the way he’s sitting. As an adult he lived in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1989 they had a catastrophic category four hurricane, Hurricane Hugo. There was widespread damage. They interviewed Peter on TV after the storm. His power was still out. He told the TV audience “It’s been terrible. I haven’t been able to blow dry my hair for five days!”

In the group photo, the tall guy next to me the left was my close friend from third grade on, Larry Jerome. He was also in the senior one act with me. You know, I was smart. But he was an absolute genius. Next to him I was like as dumb as Larry Fine. (Tell your wives who Larry Fine was)

My wife was Sandy Aldredge. That’s her yelling at me. She was the prettiest girl in school. Home Coming Queen. In all my school days and through my college career, believe it or not, I was, as Sid once said “I’m as honest as the day is long (on December 21st in Nome, Alaska)” No, truthfully, I never cheated once at anytime on anything. Except once. Sandy sat behind me in eighth grade English class. (The teacher was Mr. Anderton) We were having a test. She tapped me on the back and whispered “What’s the answer to number two?” I told her. I’m so ashamed.