California Trip 1968 Part 7

At some point we were all taken to Lyle’s TV station KFMB where he worked as the sportscaster, in Downtown San Diego.. Again I believe Rusty went with us. I think this was after dinner. He showed us all around the studio, after the live broadcasts were over. Showed us where he typed out his copy, and the teletype machine. He even gave us cutting room floor16mm film samples in big round film canisters as souvenirs. He talked with Show guy after he showed us where the talk show studio was, and I remember he and the guy were discussing how someone had walked out on the Joey Bishop Show like a night or two before, the laughed and wondered if the guy would return or something close to that. Years later I realized it had to be Regis Philbin, Joey Bishop’s them announcer (like Ed McMahon to Johnny Carson). Regis had left KFMB to do that show, and the history records show it was around July Regis had some kind of hissy fit over something (I believe “hissy fit” is Regis’ middle name anyway) and had walked out. It was national news. He eventually returned. Obviously Lyle and the rest knew him well and his predictable behavior and must have gotten a snicker out of the whole thing.

I remember Dreams of the Everyday Housewife (Glen Campbell) was actually attempting to get some airplay, I first heard it on his summer replacement TV show I think but also heard it in Lyle's car radio while we were waiting for him to come out of the TV station after our tour..my brain always paid attention to music as you know, and the Glen Campbell summer replacement show for the Smothers Brothers was in full swing.

Many of these memories are way out of sequence of course. But there was a big pool party one afternoon with all the relatives, Allen and Linda Bond, Rusty and David, Susan and her friend, Lyle and Vi the hosts and our family. We were swimming for the 2^nd time in Lyle’s pool and taking home movies and such.  Lots of food and lemonade and beer. I remember Allen being about the nicest guy in the world playing with David a lot in the pool. Lyle had put on Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass albums on a record player at pool side also.

Dan: “I remember meeting Russell (Rusty) and little David and having a riot in Uncle Lyle’s pool and I got totally sun burned.  Lyle went and got some stuff called ST37 and put it on me to cool me off and of course you mentioned the zinc oxide. (Joe tourist) Also at the time Lyle had done a sports piece on TV  and featured Rusty playing, or learning to play golf. We watched it come on TV at Lyle’s house.”

Funny how I don’t remember that and Dan did..slowly it came back to me…

One night Lyle had played and sang a couple tunes on the piano for us but the one I remember is 12^th street rag. Apparently he had taken lessons as an adult and not back in the old days in Clare County. Although he did play trombone and/or tuba are band when he was young…

Lyle gave us tickets to the San Diego Padres game for the afternoon so we went there with rusty in Tow and probably little David too. We had quite a time. Then that night the in the Big boat cruise around the bay and dinner. Rusty again always went with us. Lyle must have known everyone there and had arranged this cruise for us months in advance, a lot of baseball players and broadcasters were on the cruise. We met a player on the Padres team who had hit a home run that day.

Linda Bond was in few movie segments, and later in life she always sent out a Christmas card and newsletter - I would correspond with her each year, she always seemed like a nice lady but I have lost track of her - the last 10 or 15 years and miss her cards. I have no idea if she is still alive as the cards stopped coming one year. I called Vi Bond once to let her know mom had died, I think it was then. 

Then I think it was the next morning after the cruise we had to leave…a sad day,  even without retrospect. Rusty was crying, he did not want us to go. I think it was me who filmed David at 2 years old walking around the swimming pool carrying some kind of little stick. Many home movie segments around the pool with all the gang  who came to say goodbye.  I have not seen Rusty since! I saw David, Allen and Gloria, Allen’s second wife, and Vi in 1981 when they came to visit Michigan, and Allen and David played golf with Dad and I at the Old 27 golf course just a block from Grandma Allen’s place. I do not recall if Vane Mickle played golf with us that day or was even there. He may have, and that may have been the last time I saw Vane in good health, for later that year he had a devastating stroke and was in a nursing home the rest of his life for about 3 years. I just don’t recall the dates or details of that day in August 1981.

We left that morning, and really with no idea of how life would change forever for us all, the entire Allen, Timlin, and Bond families, and Hoovers, and later the Mickles. Well, we all know who said “Life is like a Box of Chocolates…you never know what you’re going to get.”  Or, often attributed to John Lennon, but that is incorrect, he merely borrowed the line, “Life is what happens when you’re making plans.” [The first known appearance was in an issue of Reader’s Digest magazine dated January 1957. The statement was printed together with nine other unrelated sayings in a section called “Quotable Quotes” [RDAS]: Allen Saunders: Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.]

That morning we left north to go to Disney Land and other adventures. All in all,  Lyle and Vi had shown us the greatest time, superstar hosts, and I will never forget them for it. Lyle must have really loved all of his sisters. Here we are today, all the uncles and aunts and parents, gone, and we are separated by such distance and even more, time, and life circumstances.