Rehash..

 

Believe it or not, ... I like hash (corned beef hash that is).  And I even like rehash.. or rather re-hashing old stories.

At one time or another I must have told the story of the yellow fans below, because the photo was in one of 59 folders filled with pictures I've used on my blog at one time or another over the past 3 years.  The picture made me smile as I remembered a fun time in my life that wrapped around De and his conventions.

Ok, so since it made me smile to see this picture you get to hear the re-hashed version............

Every time I was about to travel to a convention De was doing somewhere in the vast United States I'd have every bit as much fun preparing for the event as I did AT the event.  My mind would be permanently attached to two facts:  De and the Convention.

From the very beginning, when I first met DeForest (and yes, there was a time when seeing him in person made my heart jump up into my throat and I had a real hard time actually looking at him for fear he might look back!), my main objective was always the same.. do something to make De and Carolyn laugh, or at the very least... smile. And the reason for this?  Because just seeing them made me happy.

This particular convention was coming up fast and I had no real idea what to do to make the Kelley's smile, until...............  the day I walked into a dollar store and eyed this huge plain yellow paper fan up on the wall with other items for crafty people.

I didn't even have time to think of it,.... it just popped into my head!  "A De Kelley Fan!!" 

The fans were a whole one dollar each so I took all they had, which as I remember (don't bet on my memory!) was about a dozen fans.  I came home with them and proceeded to take a big black marker and write the obvious... "De Kelley Fan" upon my purchases.

Once I had them ready to go I called Sue Keenan who was  DeForest's Fan Club President and told her about the fans...

"I will pass them out among us and when De walks out on stage we will all stand up and hold the fans above our heads!"

"De will get embarrassed, you know how shy he is."

"Yeah!  I know!  I love it!"

"Me too! hahahaha"

Well, the time came when De was to appear on stage and I had passed out the fans.  Other people in the audience saw them and began coming up to us asking if we had any to sell !  Dang! If only! hahaha.. I would have loved to seen most of the audience have the fans when he walked out!!

So, out came De, waving and smiling as always... when he caught sight of the huge fans and guffawed and stepped back a moment to shake his head in disbelief. He tried very hard to ignore them by thanking everyone who came to see him.. then he turned and said something to the affect :  "And this crazy group over here with the fans.. well, they are part of my fan club.  But I don't know that I should admit that!  Turn around ladies and show everyone the fans"

We did.. and got almost a large an applause as De did when he walked on stage!

Working De's conventions .. and trust me, no matter how much fun we had you can count on the fact that we were there working for De, trying to make as many of his fans happy as possible. .. and it was a joy I've never forgotten.

And it didn't begin and end at a convention.. oh no, no, no!  There wasn't a time I wasn't trying to find ways to make the Kelley's laugh in all the years I knew them. And although I consider myself among their friends, when De did a convention, they knew that I'd be among his "McCoy Fans" having a good ol' time and promoting my favorite actor.