R.I.P. James Garner, w/personal trivia & update..

This blog is in mourning over the passing of Jim Garner, whose fans all know was a fellow Okie.  That's not the close-to-home bit for me, though.

I've watched the tributes this evening over national broadcast entities and they all cited his best known works alright. They all overlooked Hallmark's "Decoration Day", though, and that's the one that's special to me.  Why? Because of his co-star, that's why. We went to the same high school and that's the person I knew personally. I still have the yearbook where she did high school theater in the form of "The Admirable Chrichton", co-starring H. E. Baccus.

She bills herself as Judith Ivey, but to those of us of same/similar high school graduating class, she's still Judy.  When I find the yearbook and scan the pics, I'll post 'em.

#JimGarner
#JamesGarner
#JudithIvey
#JudyIvey

Beth Gentry and Judy Ivey from a group photo in which H. E. Baccus also appears...

H. E. Baccus. Ivey and Baccus both appeared in...

That's Judy in the top photo aiming that bow.

In the frame on the right, guess who was spoofing Goldie Hawn....

Yeah, not me--I was a whole lot better in the audience, and a whole lot more into Isaac Asimov.

Yup, I was into Isaac Asimov at the time, a nascent time traveler even back then; Doctor Who was on PBS and it was the Tom Baker Doctor at the time. Also into Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Richard Armour, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Bennett Serf, Ogden Nash, Don Marquis,William Saroyan, and, of course, Charlie Loudenboomer. Yeah, you can see an early pattern here, including the beginnings of the intrepid navigation of any given library, not just school, college, public, science, or law library.

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Thursday footnote: Speaking of Isaac Asimov, I totally love this Cadillac commercial, performed with what's known in the robot trade as "peanut pickers"...

I've noticed a number of hits here from the UK and I feel compelled to add that an additional early influence was Doug Adams. Even though he's a noted author, that's not how I was introduced to his work. It was via the BBC World Service. People familiar with Charlie Loudenboomer know that he's from the world of shortwave radio, and so it was: I was heavily into shortwave radio as a DXing hobby, too, sideline of amateur radio and that came as a result of being previously involved in what was then known as Civil Defense.

The Beeb was running the radio series, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at the time and Doctor Who was an incidental interest.  It wasn't until Doctor Who got restarted with "NuWho" that I learned that Doug Adams also wrote for Doctor Who during the Tom Baker years.  Small planet.

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Tuesday UPDATE:
Speaking of not-quite-famous people, there was a Kyle Dillingham concert last night to benefit a guy who needed a liver transplant, and I've got some videos of that, which I'll post as soon as they're processed. Even if he's not a nation-wide household-known name, he's still a helluva guy to go see.

Here are a couple vids. The venue is the Enid Symphony Orchestra building, which used to be a Masonic temple. Keep in mind that Kyle is a religious Assembly of God type of guy. There's a bit of crowd-watching in this vid, though; the first guy zoomed in on is the guy who benefits from this concert.  The second, a gal, is an Enid Chautauqua regular.  Enjoy...

Blogger errored out when I tried to upload the following vid, so I had to make it iPhone size. Sorry, people. Next, Kyle has explaining to do...

Now I'm thinking that I might be able to go back to large size if I break this vid up into two pieces.  Not tonight, though--that's a Manana Project.