J M Wetherington Sr

R.I.P. Yvonne Craig

Posted on August 19, 2015 by J.M. Wetherington Sr.

I awoke to the sad news this morning that Yvonne Craig had passed away Monday evening at the age of 78 from metastatic breast cancer that had spread to her liver.

The first time I saw Ms. Craig was in 1967 when she joined the Batman TV show’s third and final season as Batgirl/Barbara Gordon. The character of Batgirl was actually created in the comics as a result of the TV show’s producers wanting to add a female superhero to the show’s cast. I was 12 going on 13 and probably occupied the perfect demographic of teen boys (and maybe some dads, lol) that the show was trying to attract with the addition. Plus, it didn’t hurt that I was a huge comic book fan, and had been for years.

I have no idea if any other actresses were auditioned for the role, though I feel sure there had to have been. But Yvonne Craig was perfect for the role. Her dance background gave her the coordination and flexibility to pull off the fight scenes in a believable fashion, and she was beautiful, kind, caring and intelligent. Probably without realizing it, the producers and comic book writers had created an empowered female character, instead of another sidekick.

Ms. Craig only played Batgirl for the final season of Batman, though there was talk of her continuing the character in a Batgirl TV show. Sadly, that never came to be. But she took that one season and made the Batgirl character all her own.

The next time I saw her was a year after the final season of Batman when she showed up on another favorite TV series of mine, Star Trek. In the final season of that show, she played Marta, the green-skinned Orion slave girl who tried to seduce and then kill Captain Kirk. Even under the heavy make-up (which the beautiful Ms. Craig never needed) and green skin paint, I recognized the former Batgirl.

Mark Evanier, who had the pleasure of meeting Yvonne Craig, has a touching and humorous blog post up today about spending time with her.

Posted in Comic Books, Comics, Television | Tagged Batgirl, Batman, Batman TV show, Marta, star trek, Yvonne Craig | Comments Off

Would You Dine With Strangers?

Posted on August 15, 2015 by J.M. Wetherington Sr.

When Cindy and I took a cruise several years ago, the only part of the whole experience I disliked was having to share our evening dinner with six other people we did not know. That’s part of the normal cruise experience, but if it had just been me on the cruise, I would have taken meals in my cabin every night! I really have no desire to dine with strangers.

I look at strangers and make up stories about their lives all the time. I sometimes even do that with people I know but don’t know intimately. I create jobs, lives, motivations and even construct secrets about strangers and some friends so that I can make them a character in a story. But I very, very seldom feel an urge to sit down and talk to strangers.

So I thought it was out of character for me to feel a tingle of excitement and thoughts of “I might like to do that.” when I read this article in the Washington Post about Anthony Lacey and how he makes an effort to dine with strangers as often as he can for his blog Dining With Strangers.

Anthony Lacey, 35, interviews and dines with Meredith Denbow, 29, at Jyoti in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington. (Evelyn Hockstein for The Washington Post)

But then I figured out that these are strangers he seeks out because he wants to learn something and write something about their work or life.

THAT’S something I’ve done before. The first time was back in 2007 when my friend Michelle gave me an opportunity to interview a comic book artist (that I had almost no knowledge of or about) when he was appearing at a local comic book shop. It wasn’t really “cold” questioning, like Lacey seems to do, because I researched him as much as I could prior to our interview and gave him some “hooks” with my questions that he could expand upon.

I remember driving to the interview and thinking, “OK, you’ve always admired Superman and Superman’s alter ego, Clark kent, is a reporter, so you’re just filling out your admiration to the complete character.”

Yeah, I have weird thoughts.

Since then I’ve done other interviews with strangers (some cold and some prepared) and I think I’ve gotten better at it, but even those have either been over the phone or at their place of business.

So, though I am not fond of the idea of dining with strangers, I could probably get into it in a big way if I was seeking out people whose jobs or careers I really had a great interest in learning about.

Could you?

Posted in Blogs, Restaurants, Social Media | Tagged Anthony Lacey, Blogs, Dining With Strangers, Interviews | 1 Comment

Happy 65th Birthday Gary Larson

Posted on August 14, 2015 by J.M. Wetherington Sr.

One of the best X-mas gifts anyone ever gave me was a desk calendar containing 365 of Gary Larson’s Far Side comics. I laughed every day of the year thanks to that calendar!

Today, we take a moment to say Happy 65th Birthday Gary Larson!

Here’s a little background on the man and his comic strip from The Writer’s Almanac:

It’s the birthday of American cartoonist Gary Larson, the creator of The Far Side, a single-panel comic that ran from 1980 to 1995 and became beloved for its anthropomorphic deer, birds, cats, dogs, dinosaurs, snakes, vipers, and cows, often drawn with cat-eye glasses and beehive hairdos. He grew up in Tacoma, Washington.

After college, he began drawing a comic called Nature’s Way for The Seattle Times. It displayed much of what The Far Side would perfect: a combination of attitude and irony tethered to the craft of comic art. And it had cows. Lots of cows. But it was placed next to a children’s crossword called “Junior Jumbo” and people complained, calling it “incomprehensible.” On vacation from his job as a cruelty investigator for the Humane Society, he drove to San Francisco and dropped his portfolio at the San Francisco Chronicle. They offered him a job, but wanted to change the title. “They could have called it Revenge of the Zucchini People for all I cared,” Larson said. A week later, he was dropped from The Seattle Times and The Far Side was born. Collections of Far Side cartoons have sold more than 45 million copies worldwide.

I know, I have several on my bookshelves at Wolf’s Haven! But this cartoon below has always been my very favorite of all The Far Side cartoons.

What’s yours?

Posted in General | Tagged Gary Larson, Humor, The Far Side | 1 Comment

Throwback Thursday – Mikey & Heather 2005

Posted on August 13, 2015 by J.M. Wetherington Sr.

Looking through my photos last night I found this one of Mikey & Heather in 2005 when Heather was just a few months old and Mikey was four and a half.

Mikey and Heather in 2004.

Posted in Throwback Thursday | Tagged Family, Grandchildren, Throwback Thursday | Comments Off

Touring OIA With My 3 Oldest Grandchildren

Posted on August 12, 2015 by J.M. Wetherington Sr.

School starts back in a couple of weeks and Cindy and I will be heading back to Wolf’s Haven in three weeks for a couple of months, so I wanted to take the opportunity in the next two weeks to spend some extra time with my three oldest grandchildren before we all go our separate ways.

It’s just too damn hot and humid in Orlando to do much outdoors without melting into a puddle of sweat within the first 15 minutes. I mean, Abby and I took Bella for a walk of less than a mile this morning at 9 am and were drenched halfway through.

So I was casting about in my mind for things we could do indoors that would be active and not be something they had done before when it hit me that a tour of OIA would be fun, active and interesting.

Here are some photos I took today while touring OIA with my 3 oldest grandchildren.

In order of their birth from right to left; Mikey, his sister Heather and their cousin Abby.

Heather and Abby with Snow White in front of the Disney Store.

Mikey, Heather and Abby in front of the Fantasia wall design at the Disney Store.

Heather and Abby in front of the Spongebob wall design.

More Disney. I had to explain to them that Disney, Universal and Sea World all had stores at the airport for tourists who forgot to buy a relative or friend a souvenir when they were at the parks.

In front of the fountain by the Hyatt hotel. Mikey said he’d love to live at the Hyatt and come down to the terminal each day for breakfast, lunch and dinner and to buy electronic gear at the shops, lol.

Posing with Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man!

In front of the Shrek wall design. I teased Mikey that his hair was cleaning Shrek’s right nostril.

Mikey said, “I’m holding Mickey’s ear!” so of course Abby had to hold Mickey’s nose.

We all had a good time touring OIA and the grandkids found out there was a lot more to the airport than planes.

After leaving Orlando International Airport we stopped at CiCi’s Pizza for, what else, PIZZA!!

Posted in Family, Travel | Tagged CiCi's Pizza, Family, Grandchildren, OIA, Orlando International Airport, Travel | 2 Comments

“Rowdy” Roddy Piper “Hold On Tight” Music Video

Posted on August 7, 2015 by J.M. Wetherington Sr.

On last Monday night’s WWE RAW show and Thursday night’s WWE Smackdown show, they played this song with a video montage tribute of clips from the career of the late “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. It fit perfectly with his pro wrestling career.

When I went searching for the song I came upon the original music video, which perfectly illustrates the “What goes around, comes around” philosophy in a positive way.

It has become one of my favorite songs.

Posted in Music | Tagged "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, Hold On Tight, music, wwe | Comments Off

Throwback Thursday – Hilton Head Disney Resort 1999

Posted on August 6, 2015 by J.M. Wetherington Sr.

This week’s Throwback Thursday takes us back to 1999 when Cindy and I drove to the Hilton Head Disney Resort so we could spend a couple of days relaxing; but more especially to see the Perseid meteor shower on the completely unlighted, pitch black beach at 4am in the morning.

Shadow was the one-time mascot of the resort and, though no longer present in this life, still had a doghouse and dish to serve as a reminder.

Here I am showing how I’m always in danger of being in the doghouse.

Posted in Throwback Thursday | Tagged Disney, Hilton Head, Throwback Thursday | Comments Off

Do You Suffer From Coulrophobia?

Posted on July 28, 2015 by J.M. Wetherington Sr.

Do you suffer from Coulrophobia? If you have a fear of clowns, you do.

I will confess to never having heard of such a fear until I met Cindy and she told me she has a very real fear of clowns. It was strange to me, as I always thought clowns were funny and made people laugh (with the exception of the, in my opinion, masterful twist that Stephen King used by making Pennywise the Clown a personification of fear and evil in his story, “It”), with their painted on smiles and exaggerated features.

Not so for those who are afflicted with Coulrophobia. The very things about clowns that make some people laugh cause fright in those with Coulrophobia. As a kid, I watched Bozo the Clown on TV most mornings or afternoons and when my grandfather took me to the circus I laughed and laughed at the faces, clothing and antics of the clowns. But those same aspects, especially the made up faces that feature huge smiles, white faces, and overly exaggerated features like eyebrows and cheeks, cause a totally different reaction for those with a fear of clowns. Experts say that it is because those very aspects hide the real person from being observed, causing unease and even fear in some.

So, if you are one of the countless people who would identify yourself as having Coulrophobia, please don’t look at the photo below.

Posted in Humor | Tagged clowns, Coulrophobia | 4 Comments

Throwback Thursday – Disney Cruise – Nassau – May, 1999

Posted on July 23, 2015 by J.M. Wetherington Sr.

In May of 1999, Cindy and I took a Disney Cruise to the Bahamas and Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay. We had a great time!

This picture, that Cindy took in Nassau, originally appeared on a web page I used to post our photos and gave me a chance to poke fun at myself and the weight I had gained since getting married two years earlier.

I’m STILL trying to lose it!

Posted in Throwback Thursday | Tagged photography, Throwback Thursday, Travel | Comments Off

First Man On The Moon

Posted on July 20, 2015 by J.M. Wetherington Sr.

It was on this date 46 years ago, July 20, 1969, that Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) became the first man to step foot on the moon. I joined an estimated half a billion people around the world as I watched him take that first step off the lunar module onto the moon’s surface at approximately 11:00 pm EDT, and heard his words, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” come back from almost a quarter of a million miles away.

He was the first man on the moon.

From The Writer’s Almanac:

It was the first manned moon landing. The lunar module, dubbed Eagle, was piloted by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. In order to land on the moon, the Eagle detached from the main spacecraft command module (called Columbia and piloted by Michael Collins). As the lunar module approached the moon’s surface, Armstrong noticed that the Eagle was going to overshoot the planned landing site and was headed for a patch of boulders. With only seconds’ worth of fuel remaining, Armstrong steered the landing craft to a better location and brought her down safely. Six hours after touching down, Armstrong stepped off the module’s ladder and became the first earthling to set foot on another celestial body. He had planned his speech carefully: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Because the transmission was cutting out, people thought he said “small step for man,” but he insisted that he said “a man.”

The Eagle left a crater a foot deep in the soft soil, which Armstrong later described as being like powdered charcoal. Armstrong and Aldrin got right to work, gathering soil and rock samples and taking photographs, in case the mission needed to be aborted. They also performed a series of exercises, and found that it was fairly easy to get around on the moon, even though the powdery soil was slippery. The astronauts left behind some scientific equipment, an American flag, and a plaque, which read: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind.”

Posted in History | Tagged Apollo 11, First Man On The Moon, History, Neil Armstong | Comments Off