The Daily News

The Once-in-a-While

Daily News

1 Anybody remember this? Backstage at Matt and Nicoley's wedding. I'd like to send out a ginormous

Happy Anniversary to them, and to their littles, Li'l Jack and Li'ller Rocky, the Flying Dog. This day was the start of something really special. Anyone who was there remembers.

2 Helene's mom, Dorothy (better known as Grammy!) made the Cheshire Cat, and Helene thought to attach the muslin to the boards and then to glue the letters using Liquid Nails. We still have all the pieces. It took all of them to get it up, but the result was fun. It was like working for Disney!!!

3 Ah, Imagineeeeeeers with seven "eeeeeee's," one for each day of the week!

4 Disney, I swear to you.

5 It's fun sometimes living in a Disney cartoon.

6 I'll continue to bomb today's DN with pics. I somehow managed to take billions that day. Live and learn!

7 Live and learn.

8 Moving On, Part One: We have a huge vacay coming up really soon, and lots of the Disney wagons are circling. Tahoe is going to be featured, as always.

9 I watched Bonanza, Season One, Episode Five the other morning. The title: "Enter Mark Twain," which debuted on October 10, 1959, was the one that featured a visit to the Ponderosa by an author known only as "Josh." Of course, "Josh" was merely a pseudonym for Samuel Langhorne Clemons. The episode took a few liberties, to say the least. In fact, it altered so many facts that the episode proper became a complete kick in the pants. It featured a young Samuel Clemons, played by the multi-talented actor Howard Duff, as Twain. It was a fictitious account of how he got his famous, or infamous pen name.

10 What I particularly loved about the episode was that it appeared to be filmed in many of our Tahoe stomping grounds: Sand Harbor, the Truckee River, Virginia City (including the Bucket of Blood Saloon), and what seems to be Mt. Tallac, of snow-cross fame.

Tahoe: The extraordinary Sand Harbor, which borders

the Ponderosa.

The majestic Truckee River, crossed by many

cowhands and horses.

A very real shot of Virginia City, with my sisters

Gayle and Linda reading news of a missing

kid named O. Henry, affectionately know as

"The O."

The Bucket of Blood Saloon, Virginia City, Nevada,
home of many barroom brawls, so many that it is
said the floor has a red tint due to blood from these
exchanges.

And of course, Mt. Tallac, seen in several episodes.

11 These are clearly not shots from Bonanza. They are, however, shots of locations that were mentioned or filmed in the series.

12 "Enter Mark Twain" had references and shots of all these places.

13 That particular episode was all about Tahoe, and these all-too-familiar areas that are mentioned in the episode. Here's the link:

Bonanza Season 1 Episode 6 "Enter Mark Twain"

14 I'm thinking of having a night in Tahoe where we watch that episode on someone's cabin porch. Probably won't happen, because once we hit Tahoe at mid-week, everybody is up there, maybe forty of us, and each headed every which way. It'd be fun to show it on Pope Beach (which I assume at one time or another was visited by most people associated with the television series), sort of like enjoying a Hollywood hills in Tahoe, but Lake Tahoe does have its own identity, and its majesty hangs over us like a steepened version of the pines that smell so clean.

15 I will repeat an oft stated universal truth by Helene: "Americans love to sit around water and eat."

16 Ain't it the Truth.

17 We hope to be surrounded by water and eating in the very near future. I'm going to enjoy the Bonanza angle this year, and will be re-watching many more episodes.

18 Moving On, Part Two: I hate to sound like a grumpy old man, but I have had battles for years over the best razors to get for a perfect shave. I tend to stick with those love-budget bags of Gillette Latest-Trend razors that get changed every week or two. Every time there is a semi-formal event, I crack a new razor and hastily run it over my face. This usually results in my face looking like I got smart with a drunk hombre in the Bucket-of-Blood.

19 Running a razor over my face was an expression my Mom used to use when I would look like a bedraggled Walter Brennan. She would say, "Buddy, why don't you run a razor over your face. You look like a bedraggled Walter Brennan!"

The inimitable and perpetually

bedraggled Walter Brennan.

21 Yup.

22 My role model.

23 I might mention here that the other day, I Googled best razors around. 'Bout time. Anyone else walking around already DID that years ago, but I'm a slow roll.

24 I got 30,000 results, most with glittering reviews. I figured I would do a crap shoot on a five-star. I found one at Big Lots that was four-and-a-quarter stars or something but got it because the box had an "H" on it.

25 I saw it as smooth-face destiny. The "H" on the box looked like this: H'.

26 I woke up yesterday morning and glanced down. I had fallen asleep in Le Luge, my used, beat-up Laz-Y-Boy chair of yore with the box still in my hand.

27 There were no instructions on how to unbox. I tried peeling this little circular tab on the box, but, well, let's just say it was complicated.

28 I discreetly slipped into the bathroom and decided I could turn on the water faucet to conceal my unboxing noise, and get to the bottom of this contraption.

29 It was one of those boxes that if you turned it rightside-up everything would open upside-down, and all six mini-containers would spill out. I figured out how to un-plastic all the plastic surrounding the thing, and quietly applied shaving cream to my face.

30 I have one of those 10X mirrors that says "Caution: Things Are Closer Than They Appear" on them. So I dinged myself at first touch but soon mastered the bloody thing.

31 I got the cleanest shave of my life. My face was smooth as a baby's butt.

32 I wanted to shave my legs, arms, and chrome dome, but held back for fear of slippage.

33 But what a shave!

34 Some shave!