Why this memoir? When I started putting pieces together for what I figured was my memoir in 2011, I considered I was going on the ultimate ego trip. Who would give a tinker’s damn about slices of my experiences? Who would bother to read it? In other words, who was my audience?

To have a goal I decided my memoirs—plural seems to fit better—would be written for my offspring and various descendants with the idea that a few surviving friends might also have an interest in some of my doings. My progeny can take it or leave it. This would not be a full-fledged autobiography. So much of my life has been boring. Who cares that I went to kindergarten when I was five?p

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In 1939 and 1940 Norma and I went to the Saturday double features weekly at Washington Theater in Pasadena. Admission was 12 cents. Candy bars were a nickel, The theater was just three blocks from our duplex .The 900-seat movie house was loaded with kids, an admission line forming clear around the block up North Lake Avenue. We would sit through two films, a cartoon, newsreel and an episode of the current adventure serial. That was the big attraction. Although many serials were the less expensive westerns, they could cover the gamut of genres including crime fiction, spy stories, adventures in outer space, jungle adventures, and often popular comic book characters.
The 900-seat movie house was loaded with kids, an admission line forming clear around the block up North Lake Avenue. We would sit through two films, a cartoon, newsreel and an episode of the current adventure serial. That was the big attraction Although many serials were the less expensive westerns, they could cover the gamut of genres including crime fiction, spy stories, adventures in outer space, jungle adventures, and often popular comic book characters.

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One year ago: At the cabin in Serene Lakes for Independence day with Les, the Petterles and Wassermanns, July 4, 2013.
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After a McClelland family reunion in the Missouri Ozarks in 1991, sons Dan and Steven joined me for a long drive home in a van. We would sleep in the van or pitch our little tent, roughing it all the way. We would enjoy the sights, visiting such historic places as South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore, or a whisky-tasting stop in historic Weston, Missouri.

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Tom used his 80th birthday party to bring his Theta Chi brothers together to sing the Dream Girl Song to fraternity brother, Eppie Johnson. I have no idea why, but it’s worth chuckling at.

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I thought that on my dad’s 80th birthday it would be appropriate to talk about the greatest dad in the world.
Then I thought, “No I should write about the best public relations guy in Sacramento.
I thought briefly that I’d spend some time discussing one of the shrewdest businessmen I know.

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Here’s the video I put together for my dad’s 80th birthday.  I put a lot of work into it, so I’m guessing I’ll be playing it at his funeral some day.  He guesses the same thing.  He said so. 

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Tuesday, Aug. 30—A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to the Sun City Ukulele session today. I had the golf cart packed with my uke and song book, started to leave the garage. I stopped at the door to pick up some trash which I would drop in the big garbage container out front. Stupidly, I left the cart in reverse, failed to put the brake on, and started walking the two little bit of trash to curbside. The cart got moving, quietly, picked up momentum on our slanted driveway—and crashed into me.

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We try to keep a clean house at this site, and that means dusting off the old files and displaying them prominently here. These few have been chosen for one reason or another and cleaned up for your viewing pleasure.

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Emily didn’t just graduate from sixth grade, she graduated with honors. Her friends and family would have been proud just to see her strut across the stage and receive her certificate of promotion, but at her 6th grade promotion ceremony Emily was awarded the American Legion Award, one of only two such honors bestowed upon

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