Lawrence Welk Goodness

I caught a few minutes of this yesterday and decided to shoot a couple snippets. This show brings me a homey type of joy. They did a lot of a silly campy things way back then but they did it with plenty of talent. The Lawrence Welk Show airs every Saturday evening just like it did when I was a kid growing up in Alaska and just like so many other kids (apparently elderly folks too?) for the past 40 years.

Grandma Reminisces

My grandma is coming to a wedding with me next week and while we were started on the subject, she asked me how to pronounce the word, "congratulations". It took her a few tries to get over pronouncing it as, "con-graduation" but she laughed with glee when I told her that she had finally gotten it right. She proceeded to tell me about how good an English student she was as a young mother in Korea. One particularly fond memory of her's was when her instructor one day called her up in front of the class, patted her on the back and said something along the lines of, "This young woman sets a table for her children every day and still managed to be the only one to get a hundred on this test. What have the rest of you done with your time?" She told me that she had found time to study while she ate and did other chores and when it came time to take the test, she realized she knew all the answers. At the time she was so poor that she wore an old pair of nylon shoes that had soles that would fall apart at the front, constantly threatening to make her trip or stumble but only just. She'd sew them back together to remedy the problem so as to walk another day. Eventually she had to stop going to school because she had to take care of her sick mother-in-law who loved her like she was her own daughter. Grandmother ends this story with, "but, oh, how good I could have been!". 

A Face Fit to Advertise

I was at Fred Meyer today looking for a Bug's Life when I spotted this DVD with this dashing gentleman on it:

I haven't seen The Tailor of Panama, though I remember hearing about it when it first came out. So why then, did it look so very familiar? Yes, I have seen every James Bond flick except A License to Kill ( which I WILL find someday, watch and then be able to tell everyone I've seen them all!) but that wasn't it. There was something else... something even closer... and then it came to me!

The Thomas Crown Affair! Oh man, I was so proud of myself when I walked over to the T section and found this little number. It's almost the exact same image, with the exact same expression and formatted in the exact same manner with similar colors and tones as the other. Keep in mind that these two movies are in no way related or sequels/prequels of each other. Here's one more cover, although it's not quite a spitting image of the others it still has ol' Brosnan with the right half his face darkened. 

So good!

Now, for your viewing pleasure, here they are all lined up: