Friday, November 30, 2012

Let me make one thing perfectly clear...

I am not a crook.


No, wait, that wasn’t it.

Oh, yes, now I remember.

Anastasia was not, as I mistakenly said in a comment on the last post, a Princess. She was a Grand Duchess.

Try not to forget that. We will be testing later.

After I mentioned Anastasia, commenter A Lady’s Life of British Columbia, Canada, mentioned singer Pat Boone’s rendition of the song “Anastasia.” Thank you, A Lady’s Life, and as Little Red Riding Hood may or may not have said, “What a strange name you have, Grandma.”

Bringing up Pat Boone has opened a tremendous treasure-trove of trivia (note the alliteration) that we have not hitherto mined.

Did you know that Pat Boone is the great-great-great-great-grandson of the early American explorer Daniel Boone?

Did you know that Pat Boone is a cousin of actor Richard Boone who starred in the television series Have Gun, Will Travel?

Did you know that Pat Boone’s wife Shirley is the daughter of country-singer Red Foley, whose 1951 recording of “Peace in the Valley” was the first million-seller gospel recording in history?

Did you know that Pat Boone’s daughter Debby (the one who kept singing “You Light Up My Life” over and over again until we all wanted to fwow up) is married to Gabriel Ferrer, the son of actor José Ferrer and singer Rosemary Clooney?

Did you know that, according to Billboard magazine, Pat Boone was the second biggest charting artist of the late 1950s, behind only Elvis Presley but ahead of Ricky Nelson and The Platters, and was ranked at No. 9 — behind The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney but ahead of artists such as Aretha Franklin and The Beach Boys — in its listing of the Top 100 Top 40 Artists of 1955–1995?

Live and learn. For example, I never knew there was a group called Ricky Nelson and The Platters.

Here is that test I warned you about:

Anastasia was:
1. A song sung by Ricky Nelson and the Platters
2. A princess
3. A showgirl
4. A Grand Duchy, like Luxembourg
5. Ingrid Bergman
6. All of the above

You get extra points if you can identify the building behind Richard Nixon in the photograph at the top of the post.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.


Here is a goofy picture of Pat Boone:

(Photo by Gage Skidmore, 2011)

...but it is not nearly as goofy a picture as this one, which is of two people who are definitely not Pat Boone:


Since the drinks have been poured, a toast is in order.

Accordingly, I propose the following toast:

Here’s to the dwindling days of our lives
And the hope that you’ll always remember
The day I composed this ridiculous remarkable post:
The thirtieth day of November.



Let me also make one other thing perfectly clear.

I have not been hitting the sauce. This is the way I normally am
am normally am have been for as far back as I can remember.




SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION DEPARTMENT, MINUS FIVE, TIMES TWO: One of the things I can still remember from the dear, dead days almost beyond recall is having attended, as a high-school student, a State Convention of the Future Teachers of America at North Texas State College (now the University of North Texas) in Denton and dancing the night away to the live music of the NTSC Jazz Band and their squeaky-clean boy singer, one Pat Boone. This memory pre-dates by about three years my 1958 appearances on American Bandstand with Dick Clark in Philadelphia.

13 comments:

  1. Just yesterday my husband, for some reason I can't remember, mentioned to me that he had recently seen Pat Boone in a TV commercial for walk-in bathtubs.

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  2. Jeannelle, you do know why, of course. Because it is precisely that very geriatric crowd to whom Pat Boone appeals, rather like a latter-day Lawrence Welk.

    How nice to hear from you again and to know that you are still stopping by the old blog from time to time.



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  3. Is the building in the background The Hall of Presidents at Disney World by any chance? And is the man in the foreground Lex Luther?

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  4. Thanks for the nice trip down memory lane. I am much more fond of Pat Boone's music than that of "the king." One of my favorite Boone recordings is "Friendly Persuasion." So gentle; so sweet.

    Before I forget: behind the Great Prevaricator is one of the Disney properties. The monorail was the tip off.

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  5. Yorkshire Pudding, the man in the foreground is definitely Lex Luther, though he was known here by another name. The building is at Disney World but is not The Hall of Presidents. See my comment to Pat (an Arkansas stamper) for the building's identity.

    Pat (an Arkansas stamper), you are correct about the Disney property and the monorail. Actually, it is the Contemporary Hotel at Disney World in Orlando.

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  6. This is a good post, I expect. But I also suspect it's aimed mostly at your American readers. I know who Daniel Boone was, because I had an LP with the song on it.
    "Daniel Boone was a man, yes a big man, with an eye like an eagle and as tall as a mountain was he." Based on those clearly improbably facts I have always subconsciously relegated him to the status of the other songs on the LP: a character in a nursery rhyme.

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  7. Katherine, your Daniel Boone sounds more like the fictional Paul Bunyan who hails from the north woods of Minnesota or the fictional Pecos Bill of west Texas fame. Pat Boone has made no claim of being related to either of them, as far as I know.

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  8. waitin in school all day long .,,.,.,..,.,.,12 points ifin you can tell which of the celebrities fits the mold of all your trivia personalities as to the statement i presented

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  9. Putz, 12 points to me! Ricky Nelson, 1957.

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  10. I came here from your recent post because you said that this post contained an account of your meeting with Pat Boone, only it doesn't, so I want my money back, and while I'm at it, I might mention that you're talking printer looks like a bird. As for Pat Boone and his kin, my half-sister is one of them.

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  11. Snowbrush, you will not be getting your money back, first of all because you never gave me any, and second of all because I never said this post contained an account of my meeting with Pat Boone, only that I had mentioned the time our paths crossing (and they did, at the dance at North Texas State College - he sang and I danced) in this post. I never met with him - you assumed too much.

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  12. ALL you did was dance while he sang at a large gathering?! Well, gee, let me tell you about the time I crossed paths with Lynyrd Skynrd.

    As for not paying you, I'm sure I sent you a large check after you told me that all your other readers had, and I had better ante up too if I didn't want to be exposed on your blog as a cheapskate. I just can't remember how many zeros came after the one.

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  13. Snowbrush, how many zeroes came after the one is not important. What is important is where you placed the decimal point.

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<b>Always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion</b>

We are bombarded daily by abbreviations in everyday life, abbreviations that are never explained, only assumed to be understood by everyone...