DOING THE PICKER DANCE

One of the groups I'm a member of on Facebook is one devoted to the great comic books published by Dell and Gold Key. I love these comics and the fine folks that are members of this group are all extremely knowledgeable and friendly. Their love for these comics clearly comes through in every image and comment that is posted. It's a great place to hang out after a long hard day of work and just relax. There's always something of interest, some comic book I had when I was a kid, comics I currently have in my collection or comics that I really, really want.

Like the one pictured above. It's AVENGERS #1 (and only), published by Gold Key comics in November 1968. It's based on the classic British television series starring Patrick McNee and the oh-so-lovely Diana Rigg as John Steed and Emma Peel, respectively.

 As you can see, the character's names get top billing here because of the fact that Marvel Comics was already publishing a comic book called THE AVENGERS (you may have heard of it) at the time. The show is one of my all time favorites and this comic book, an obscure one-shot, has been one of my comic book holy grails for many years. I assumed I would never own a copy because one, they're hard to find and two, they're usually very expensive, especially in high grade.

Not long ago, someone posted a photo of this comic in the Dell/Gold Key Facebook group. I commented that I wished I had a copy but that I would probably never be so lucky as price was definitely a barrier. Next thing you know, I get a message from Dino Leto saying he had a copy for sale if I was interested.

I was certainly interested. He was offering the book at $30.00, shipping included, which was a fair price. I asked to see scans of the front and back covers and he complied. The front cover looked good but the back cover was a little worn. I countered with an offer of $25.00. Dino came back with "let's meet in the middle at $27.50" I agreed and commented that this was just like an episode of AMERICAN PICKERS. How many times have Judy and I watched Frank and Mike "do the dance" this same way over some treasure? With an agreed upon price, I mailed Dino a check and waited.

I received the book the other day and it's a beauty. At last, this long sought comic is mine! Thanks to Dino for reaching out to make this sale. I'll definitely do business with him again in the future. And thanks to all of the great folks in the Dell/Gold Key Facebook group for sharing their memories, knowledge and passion for these wonderful, vintage comic books.

 

SCRATCHING A MEN'S ADVENTURE MAGAZINE ITCH

MEN September 1960

MAN'S MAGAZINE February 1955

Long time readers of this blog will know full well what I confess here: I LOVE Men's Adventure Magazines! When I first started the blog, I often posted images of classic Men's Adventure Magazines (or MAM from here on) covers on almost a daily basis. My purpose was two-fold. One, to share with my readers things that I love and two, to hopefully drive traffic in the form of like-minded individuals to my blog. I also ran a series of posts awhile back featuring covers of all of the MAMs I had in my collection at that time.

My old friend Bob Parker came for the weekend the other day. He was here primarily to play poker with me and the boys in our monthly get together at the Austin Club. But we spent a great deal of time catching up on things since the last time I saw him, which was at my wedding, ten years ago this coming March 12th.

Bob brought along a nice stash of his own MAMs for show-and-tell and we spent a great deal of time going over each and every one of them. They were fantastic! Of course, that led to me going upstairs to the man cave and hauling out my box of MAMs and we continued to ogle and drool over the wonderment contained within.

All of that MAM action led me to realize that, hey, it's been awhile since I scored any of these beauties. Last year's Wizard World Austin Comic Con came up bupkis in the MAM category and I haven't attended a City Wide Garage Sale (where I usually score some MAMs) in quite some time. But there's always eBay!

I jumped online and started searching and before you know it, I found and purchased the issues pictured above, both of them for less than ten bucks apiece. My plan is to continue to buy inexpensive issues of various MAMs on eBay on a more-or-less regular basis. There's some great stuff to be found out there.

Oh, and Bob tells me he might just be interested in selling his MAMs. As Frank and Mike on AMERICAN PICKERS say, "if you're a seller, I'm a buyer." Time will tell. In the meantime thanks to my old friend for helping to reignite a flame that had been turned down to low for far too long.

 It was great to see my buddy again. We had a blast and I hope he'll come down again for another poker game or two later this year.

Good friends, poker, beer, Mexican food and MAMs. Now that's what I call a great weekend!

 

"I SAID NOTHING"

PERSUADER (2003), the seventh Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child, opens with a bang, a dare-you-to-stop-reading scene involving an attempted kidnapping and gun battle that finds Reacher (all 6 foot, 5 inches, 250 pounds of him) rescuing the would-be-kidnap-victim (a crime lord's son), killing a cop and fleeing with the young man in tow.

But it's a sequence worthy of the best MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE episode you've ever seen as all is not what it seems.It's all part of an elaborate ruse designed to get Reacher within the fortress-like home of Beck, a rug merchant who is secretly an international arms dealer. Beck's boss is Quinn, a figure from Reacher's past. And for Reacher, this one's personal.

Reacher finds himself a prisoner in the house, a heavily guarded structure situated on the rocky, windswept Maine coast. But no prison can hold Reacher for long. He escapes to gather information and kill some bad guys, then returns to get closer to Beck and finally Quinn himself in an explosive showdown.

There's plenty of mayhem and violence here including several fights involving guns and fists. The plot moves swiftly and surely with flashback scenes skillfully inserted into the present day narrative. Reacher is really up against some tough characters in this one but you know he's going to win. And the scene in which Reacher enters a roomful of villains with a Persuader model shot gun in each hand and quips "remember me?" to the main villain is right out of the best Clint Eastwood action film ever made. 

PERSUADER is the twelfth Reacher novel I've read and it's every bit as good as all of the others. For the record, I've read: KILLING FLOOR (1997), DIE TRYING (1998), TRIPWIRE (1999), RUNNING BLIND (2000), WITHOUT FAIL (2002), THE ENEMY (2004), ONE SHOT (2005), THE HARD WAY (2006), BAD LUCK AND TROUBLE (2007), NOTHING TO LOSE (2008) and GONE TOMORROW (2009). The twentieth Jack Reacher novel, MAKE ME, is scheduled to be published later this year. As long as Lee Child keeps writing these addictive page-turners, I'll keep buying and reading them.

For those you not familiar with one of the greatest action heroes in modern pulp fiction, Jack Reacher is an ex-MP, a homeless (by choice) adventurer who finds intrigue and danger wherever he goes. He's part Clint Eastwood, part Sherlock Holmes and if you haven't read these books, you need to start doing so. Immediately

 

YOU NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST GORN

I watched ARENA, a first season episode of the original STAR TREK television series last night. I recorded the episode off of MeTV (one of my favorite cable TV channels!). I've seen the episode several times but it's been long enough since I saw it last to make this viewing fresh and fun to watch.

Not as much fun to watch, however, as it was the first time I saw it. That's because ARENA was the first episode of STAR TREK I ever saw. Coincidentally, I saw this episode on January 19th, 1967, the date of its' original broadcast, which is almost exactly 48 years ago. My how time flies.

The most important thing about seeing ARENA on that long ago night was where and how I saw it. I was at my maternal grandparents house that night for a visit. I was aware that there was a new science fiction show on NBC called STAR TREK but I was also aware that neither of the two (yes, two!) local Austin television stations, KTBC and KHFI (later KTVV and now KXAN) were broadcasting the series either "live" or tape delayed. I could only imagine what wonders I was missing.

However, the NBC affiliate in San Antonio was carrying STAR TREK. No, my grandparents didn't live in San Antonio. In fact, they lived just a few blocks down the street from us. But they did have two very crucial elements that enabled me to boldly go where no man has gone that night.

The first was a Zenith color television (the quality goes in before the name goes on was the slogan as I recall). This was a mammoth console affair with a giant, green tinted glass picture tube and dials that you had to turn by hand as there was no remote control in 1967. This meant that I not only got to see STAR TREK, but I got to see it "in living color" as all shows broadcast on NBC were at the time.

The other thing that made seeing STAR TREK possible was a giant radio/television antenna/tower that my uncle had erected on the side of my grandparent's house. This allowed radio communications from their business to home "base" and to any and all vehicles equipped with mobile radio devices. KCN-492 where are you? It also meant my grandparents could pick up television signals from far off San Antonio. This was "cable" television in 1967. There was no home owners association in my grandparents neighborhood then or now but I can only imagine what their neighbors in Pemberton (an upscale Austin neighborhood) must have thought of that giant antenna contraption.

So it was that I got to see ARENA, my first STAR TREK episode ever at my grandparents that night. STAR TREK would be halfway through it's second season before I saw another episode. That's when KHFI finally starting showing TREK but not on it's regularly scheduled day and time. Did I care? Hell no. As long as I could see this ultra cool new television series at home on our own Zenith color television set I was happy.

So, what about ARENA almost 50 years later? It holds up very well. Kirk and the Gorn engage in a fight to the almost death in an episode based on the short story of the same name by veteran science fiction writer Fredric Brown. The episode I watched last night features new CGI special effects shots which enhance the overall look of the show without taking away from the narrative.

So thumbs up for ARENA in both 1967 and 2015. And thanks to my grandparents for giving me the opportunity to see what has become a touchstone of American popular culture for the very first time. I've never forgotten it.

 

BATMAN '66 VOL. 1

Indulge me, if you will, in a little game of "what if?"

Back in the 1960s, Dell and Gold Key Comics published many comic books based on then popular movies and television series. There was a wide variety of material adapted into comics form. Some of the comic book series based on television shows ran for many issues, others were short lived and of course, all of the comic book versions of films were one shots. I have many of these comics in my collection and I'm always looking to add more. While some are semi-faithful to the original source material, others take more than a few liberties (see Gold Key's STAR TREK series). The bottom line is they're all fun. These comics appeal to comic book fans, film buffs and TV show addicts. And if you're like me, I fall into all three of those categories.

One of the odd things I've thought about over the years (among a plethora of other odd things), is this: what if, during the 1960s, when the ABC-TV series BATMAN was at the height of its' popularity, Dell or Gold Key Comics had published a tie-in comic book based on the immensely popular television series? Oh, of course, we all know that it could never have happened. DC Comics owned the characters and they were already cashing in on the popularity of the television caped crusader in such titles as BATMAN, DETECTIVE, WORLD'S FINEST, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA and THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD (my favorite!). Batman was everywhere in the DC comics of the era and at times it seemed that the character was in real danger of overexposure.

 But what if a BATMAN TV comic had been published by Dell and/or Gold Key? What would the stories have been like? What artist would have been assigned to the title? Even money says it would have probably been illustrated by Jack Sparling, a lower tier artist whose godawful work graced a multitude of comics from a variety of publishers in the 1960s. But imagine what a Gold Key BATMAN comic would have looked like if it was drawn by the great Dan Spiegle or, even better, the legendary Russ Manning? I can only dream.

Recently DC Comics began publishing an ongoing BATMAN '66 comic book series that features stories and artwork based on the visual style of the classic television show and featuring likenesses of the actors and actresses that appeared on the show. I received a trade paperback collection of BATMAN '66 Volume 1 for this past Christmas and I just finished reading it this afternoon.

It's a ton of fun! All of the stories are by Jeff Parker with artwork provided by a diverse line-up of artists including Jonathan Case, Ty Templeton, Joe Quinones, Sandy Jarrell, Ruben Procopio and Colleen Coover. All of these artists have an appropriately "cartoony" style that perfectly fits the stories. Batman and Robin face off against The Riddler, Catwoman, The Penguin, Mister Freeze, Chandell, Lorelei Circe, The Joker, Egghead, The Mad Hatter, The Clock King and The Sandman while Batgirl solos against Catwoman. Everything is done in the tone and style of the '60s television series and for the half hour it took me to read this volume, it was 1966 again.

And that's a good thing.

 

A DAY AT THE RACES

A DAY AT THE RACES (1937), the Marx Brothers seventh film and their second at MGM, does one thing exceedingly well. It makes me realize how absolutely drop dead brilliant DUCK SOUP (1933), which the brothers made at Paramount, is in comparison to the films they made at MGM. Oh sure, the MGM films had bigger budgets and better production values. They had that MGM gloss. They also were extremely profitable for the studio.

A DAY AT THE RACES does some things right. There's no Zeppo or Gummo but there is the unofficial fourth Marx brother (or is that sister?), Margaret Dumont (Margo?). There's a very funny scene between Groucho and Chico in which Chico sells Groucho a succession of books needed to bet on the horses. There's an action packed horse race at the end of the film and a good measure of laughs throughout the rest of the film.

It's not a bad movie. I've watched it several times and I always get some chuckles from it. I watched it again the other night and I'm glad I had it recorded so I could skip the worst parts of the movie. And if you're a Marx Brothers fan, you know what those are.

Elaborate musical numbers were used in A NIGHT AT THE OPERA and, while they slow down the narrative momentum, they at least make sense in a film with an opera setting. In A DAY AT THE RACES, the musical numbers (here even bigger and longer in duration) are shoehorned into the plot and bring everything to a screeching halt. We get to hear Allan Jones sing, see a water ballet, listen to Chico play the piano and Harpo strum the harp and it's all incredibly boring. I fast forwarded through this part of the film, something audiences in a movie theater obviously cannot do. Here's a tip: if you see this film in a theater, as soon as the musical number segment starts, take a bathroom break and go get some popcorn and soda. You won't miss anything that's important to the story. I guarantee it.

Oh, and skip the second musical number too. It's the one staged in a barn with an ensemble of black singers, musicians and dancers. It's all slightly racist, comes out of nowhere, does nothing for the story and ends shamefully with Groucho, Chico and Harpo in black face. Ugh.

If you're a Marx Brothers fan, you know all about these shortcomings of their MGM films. If you're new to the Marx Brothers, A DAY AT THE RACES is a film you must see at some point. It's worth seeing but keep your finger on that fast forward button if you're watching a recorded version of the film.

 

CAP AND THE KING

I recently scored a nice condition copy of CAPTAIN AMERICA ANNUAL #3 (1976) in a trade with fellow comic book collector Blake Long (Thanks Blake!). This king-size issue came out in the summer of 1976 and features a cover, story art and script by Jack "King" Kirby. Regular readers of this blog know that Jack Kirby is my all-time favorite comic book artist. I think he's the greatest comic book artist that ever lived (your mileage may vary).

I'm sure I read this one when it came out but I didn't currently have it in my collection so I gladly traded for it. I sat down and read it the other day and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's not top-tier Kirby but Jack Kirby, even at this point of his career, was still better than almost anyone else working in comics at the time.

Kirby returned to Marvel Comics in the mid-'70s after his groundbreaking sojourn at DC where he created such terrific comics as FOREVER PEOPLE, MISTER MIRACLE, NEW GODS, KAMANDI and OMAC. He also did a brilliant run on the pre-existing title, SUPERMAN'S PAL JIMMY OLSEN. When he returned to the House of Ideas, former creative partner Stan Lee was ensconced as publisher and a slew of editors were responsible for a number of various titles. Kirby was given control of CAPTAIN AMERICA (a character he co-created with Joe Simon way back in 1941), BLACK PANTHER (a character he co-created with Stan Lee in 1965), 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (based on the Stanley Kubrick film and a title which morphed into MACHINE MAN) and THE ETERNALS (a new title loosely based on Eric Von Daniken's CHARIOTS OF THE GODS, but pure Kirby magic). These titles were only tangentially related to the larger Marvel Universe as Kirby had new ground to break, new territories to explore.

In the Annual, Cap goes up against a menace from a black star with only a brave, plucky farmer as an ally. A strange vessel has landed on the farmer's property and he calls Cap (who is nearby giving a lecture on UFOs) to investigate. They find a young alien named The Captive who is being hunted by a fleet of star ships from a distant galaxy. Cap and the farmer naturally try to protect the alien from harm but all is not what it seems.

What follows is pure Kirby. Action, fight scenes, ideas, concepts, characters and a hint of enough back story material to launch an entire new series based on the alien races on display here. The inks, by Frank Giacoia and John Verpoorten are solid but not quite as good as Kirby's two best inkers: Mike Royer and Joe Sinnott. Hell, Joe Sinnott inking can make any one's pencils look great. When he worked with Kirby the results were gorgeous.

Annuals like this one used to be a regular staple of both Marvel and DC comics. For many years, the stories were stand alone affairs, often as not separate from current continuity. Then at some point, the annuals became a staging ground for massive multi-issue epics with story lines running through dozens of issues over the course of a long, hot summer.

I liked them better when they were like this one. I especially liked them when they were written and drawn by Jack Kirby.

 'Nuff said.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE

The answer to the trivia question I posed a couple of days ago is CITIZEN KANE (1941). At least, that's the film I had in mind when I posed the question. My good buddy and fellow film buff Kelly Greene had the right answer. We see a credit for the Mercury Players and Orson Welles, the title (seen above) and then a closeup of the Kane family crest on the gates of Xanadu. It's yet another way that KANE was a truly revolutionary, innovative and game changing piece of cinema.

However, I must acknowledge that there may be other films that predate CITIZEN KANE that lack a full title/credit sequence. One reader of this blog, "hcasner", answered with OF MICE AND MEN (1939). I must confess that I have only seen that film once and that was many years ago. I do not recall the title/credit sequence (or lack thereof) in that film. But if it is indeed missing a formal opening title/credit sequence, then we have another winner. I salute "hcasner"'s film history knowledge. I suspect that it's entirely possible there are other films that predate OF MICE AND MEN that subverted the usual opening title/credit sequence. I would love to hear from my readers as to what those films are.




 

FLYBOYS

I rolled the dice for all of 99 cents at the thrift store the other day for a used DVD of FLYBOYS (2006). I watched it yesterday afternoon.

It's not a bad movie. It's not a good movie. It's a stunningly average, just slightly above mediocre movie. The visual effects are far and away the best thing about this film. The worst? The tired, oh-so-predictable screenplay (by Phil Sears, Blake T. Evans and David S. Ward) that somehow manages to cram every war movie cliché  you've ever seen into the film's 138 minute running time.

I have to admit it, I'm a sucker for WWI aviation material. Joe Kubert's masterful ENEMY ACE comic book stories that he did for DC back in the 1960s brilliantly captured the air war over France and Germany between 1914 and 1917. THE BLUE MAX (1966), which I recently watched and reviewed here on my blog, is a fine film. But to this day, the absolute best WWI flying movie is still the now 88-year-old silent epic, WINGS (1927). To see that magnificent film on the big screen with a live orchestra (as Judy and I had the pleasure of doing at the Paramount Theatre a few years back) is to simultaneously have your spirit soar and your heart broken. If you've never seen WINGS, you must do so the first chance you get.

FLYBOYS, which is loosely based on a true story, stars the ubiquitous James Franco (straining mightily to channel James Dean and failing mightily in the process) and a bunch of young, unknown actors as Americans who join the French Lafayette Escadrille in 1916, before the U.S. entered the conflict. The film shows them arriving in France, going through flight school (such as it was at that early date) and eventually going into battle in the war torn skies.

The guessing game of who will live and who will die begins immediately because, this being a true story war film, you just know that not all of these guys will make it. Not even the one who has (inexplicably) a pet lion. Wait, what?

Someone will lose his nerve. Someone will be redeemed. James Franco will fall in love with a fetching young French farm girl (Jennifer Decker), a luminous beauty who reminds me of a cross between Andie McDowell and Elizabeth McGovern.

But let's face it. You paid your money (even 99 cents) to see a WWI movie called FLYBOYS and all you really want to see are dogfights between French biplanes and red German Fokker tri-wings (including the ominous black plane dubbed the  Black Falcon). Oh yeah, and zeppelins. There's a hell of a good battle sequence involving a zeppelin, a doomed aircraft design that I have always found fascinating.

The dogfights play like a video game, the planes buzzing and whizzing, twisting and turning, diving and climbing, machine guns spitting death. It's good (but not great) CGI stuff but it's not enough to lift the rest of the film from the mud pit of mediocrity it's mired in.

FLYBOYS is a handsomely produced film. The cinematography by Henry Braham gives everything the amber glow of times gone by while the score by Trevor Rabin is sometimes stirring, sometimes obtrusive (does every contemporary film have to have a continuously running musical score?).

You could do worse than spending an afternoon watching FLYBOYS. But you could also do a hell of a lot better. Like WINGS. Go watch it. Right now.

BYE BYE, BABY

Legendary sex symbol Marilyn Monroe took her own life via an overdose of various pills on August 5th, 1962. At least, that's what history says. But there have always been questions about Monroe's death and in Max Allan Collins' mystery novel BYE BYE, BABY (2011), private detective Nate Heller discovers the truth behind the icon's untimely demise.

Nate Heller is Collins' durable private eye who has, in a serious of brilliant novels, solved many of the major unsolved crimes and mysteries of the 20th century. By the early 1960s, Heller has an office in Los Angeles where he serves as a "security consultant" and is known as the "private eye to the stars."

Heller is hired by Monroe at the beginning of the book to install phone taps in her house. She fears she's being watched and listened to by a variety of people, some good (relatively speaking), some bad. Monroe does of course eventually die but not before she and Heller have shared a bed together. Heller launches his own investigation into her death and he finds a trail of cover-ups, lies, and deceit that stretches all the way from Los Angeles to Washington D.C.

In the course of the novel Heller meets and rubs shoulders with a veritable "who's who" of the major players that were involved with Monroe either directly or peripherally. There's Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, Hugh Hefner, Jimmy Hoffa, Sam Giancana, Joe DiMaggio, U.S Attorney General Robert Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy. Collins also has several other real life characters as minor players along with some entirely fictional creations.  It's a skillful blend of fact and fiction, part history book, part noir thriller.

This is the fifth Nate Heller book I've had the pleasure to read. I'm currently reading THE MILLION DOLLAR WOUND, the third in the series, which takes place during World War II. Collins has a real winner with the Heller books. They punch two of my hot buttons: history and mystery. Thumbs up to all.

"IT'S EITHER VERY OLD MEAT OR VERY YOUNG CHEESE"

I know for a fact that I first saw THE ODD COUPLE at the old Fox Theatre on Airport Blvd. when it first came out back in 1968. I saw it with my neighbor, Brykerwoods classmate and good buddy John Rideout. I loved it at the time. I thought it was uproariously funny.

I still do.

Judy and I watched it again last night thanks to a broadcast on TCM. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've seen this movie. I come to it every so often over the years and it's like seeing an old friend again. You know all of the jokes but you still laugh because they're still funny. THE ODD COUPLE is like your favorite pair of old slippers, well worn but still sturdy enough and oh-so-comfortable.

Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau had previously appeared together in Billy Wilder's THE FORTUNE COOKIE (1966). Matthau won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his part in the film. But it's in Neil Simon's THE ODD COUPLE, that the sublimely brilliant comedy team of Lemmon and Matthau took root and fully blossomed. Was there anyone better at playing the mid-century, urban, nervous everyman than Jack Lemmon? Was there ever anyone better at playing a lovable slob than Walter Matthau? 

There are some memorable supporting characters: Vinnie (John Fiedler), Speed (Larry Haines), Roy (David Sheiner) and Murray (Herb Edelman) as the poker buddies and Gwendolyn (Carole Shelley) and Cecily (Monica Evans) as the "Coo Coo" Pigeon sisters. Director Gene Saks opens things up from time to time by shooting some scenes on the streets of New York City but 90% of the film is just two men in one apartment.

Sure it's basically a filmed play abut everything about this movie works. From the cast, to the Oscar nominated screenplay by Neil Simon (who wrote the Broadway play that the film is based on), to the bouncy, memorable score by Neal Hefti, to the sharp cinematography of Robert B. Hauser, who uses the wide screen format and a mobile camera to keep the action moving throughout the eight-room apartment set. Watching the film again last night for the first time in several years, I was struck by how good-looking it is. THE ODD COUPLE is a first rate production from top to bottom.

The film grossed over $44 million dollars in 1968, making it the fourth highest-grossing film of the year. It earned two Academy Award nominations: Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing. It was followed by the long running hit ABC-TV series starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman as Felix and Oscar, respectively. There's been an animated cartoon series starring a fussy, neatnik cat and slob dog. There's even been a version with an all female cast (I suppose they had "Coo Coo" Pigeon brothers in that one) and countless stage productions over the years. THE ODD COUPLE has been revived on Broadway and has become a staple of local theater groups for years. With the right actors in the lead roles, a production of THE ODD COUPLE is money in the bank. Judy and I saw a good one a few years back at the Austin Playhouse with our friend Bernadette Nason as one of the Pigeon sisters.

But it's the original film that remains the best incarnation of this material. Jack Lemmon is Felix Ungar and Walter Matthau is Oscar Madison the way Sean Connery is James Bond. I laughed my ass off watching these guys when I was 12 and I laughed heartily again last night. I hope to continue to do so from time to time over the years ahead.