Visit YellowBalloonPublications.com for Lots of DeForest Kelley-Related Updates and Information

Please visit YellowBalloonPublications.com for lots of DeForest Kelley-related updates and information!! I'm writing blogs there now!

And since this is the 50th anniversary of Star Trek I'm doing a lot of interviews and podcasts about De's career and my decades-long friendship with him and his wife Carolyn.

I have an audio version of DeForest Kelley Up Close and Personal: A Harvest of Memories from the Fan Who Knew Him Best.

Listen to/see the interviews and order the audio version of the book EXCLUSIVELY at YellowBalloonPublications.com.

De ya there!

3 Ways #DeForestKelley is Still Making the World a Better Place

3 Ways DeForest Kelley is Still Making the World a Better Place

Actor #DeForestKelley passed away on June 11, 1999 but his portrayal of Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy in the original #StarTrek television and motion picture series’ continues to impact the world in medical clinics, hospitals and other places across the globe.

 

1.) The late actor DeForest Kelley would likely be one of the last people on earth  to suppose—or even to imagine—that his legacy would extend more than a few years beyond his lifetime. In fact, when asked by Dan Madsen how he wished to be remembered, DeForest—familiarly known as “De” to his friends and legions of fans—responded that he wondered if he would be remembered at all. “There’s nothing deader than a dead actor!” he told Madsen—which is generally true. Fewer than ten greats and too-soon-gone icons are still widely remembered and celebrated by the masses decades later: Charlie Chaplin, Laurence Olivier, Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, John Wayne, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley.

So the self-effacing actor would likely be astounded (and definitely touched and honored)to learn of the breadth and width of his enduring legacy. For it’s a fact that countless Dr. McCoy “clones” are tending patients in medical clinics and hospitals across the globe. Whether they’re doctors, nurses, or medical technicians, many were inspired to enter the fields they’re in because of Kelley’s portrayal of Dr. McCoy.

According to Kelley, Dr. McCoy was based on one of Kelley’s Encino doctors… old-fashioned to the core, the way his doctor uncle had been….the kind who, if he didn’t make house calls, would if he could. Kelley’s doctor brought his dog to work with him. His practice was home-like, unhurried, and welcoming. It isn’t hard to imagine that most of today’s McCoy clones emulate the same relational concern and caring, with or without the canine companion.

2.) For the most part, De’s fans have continued to carry De’s ‘katra’ with them. Deeply concerned for the welfare of others (animal, human, veterans, hospitalized children, and fans of all ages, abilities, aptitudes and faiths) as De was, and as gently engaged in the world in the ways he was—treating each encounter with another person (virtual or actual) as a sacred, shared moment and an opportunity to interact and serve—De’s delegations of fans, friends and family members are walking, talking blessings just waiting to deploy their essences to make someone else’s day.

3.) De’s co-stars, producers, directors, writers and the multitudes of technicians whose lives he enhanced during his long career in motion pictures and television have always said what a thoughtful, helpful, tuned-in individual he was with each of them. Patient, kind, and rarely upset (and so respectful and kind when upset that Richard Arnold reported that it was hard to tell how irritated he was unless you knew him very, very well), their memories of working with De are decidedly delicious.  I can’t help but believe that a measure of his personality and approach to relationships rubbed off on each of them, and that they are kinder, gentler individuals than they might otherwise be today. I know for a fact that my long association with De had a profound effect on the way I engage with others today. 

All things considered, I don’t think I was off by more than a millimeter when I shared at De’s memorial service the following sentiment: “In my opinion, DeForest Kelley was the kind of man God had in mind when He created Adam. If the world was more-heavily populated with DeForest Kelley types, it would be the paradise we all wish it was.”

#

Kristine M. Smith is an author and freelance copywriter whose decades’-long friendship with Carolyn and DeForest Kelley changed the trajectory of her life. A greatly-enhanced edition of Kris’s 2001 Kelley title—renamed DeForest Kelley Up Close and Personal, A Harvest of Memories from the Fan Who Knew Him Best— will debut at Amazon in 2016 during Star Trek’s 50^th anniversary. Email Kris at kris@wordwhisperer.net. She will be available for virtual DeForest Kelley interviews throughout 2016. To book her for local or national convention appearances, use the same email address.

If you were impacted by the career, kindness, or concern of DeForest Kelley, please reach out to Kris if you haven’t already. She is compiling the second edition of her e-book, The Enduring Legacy of DeForest Kelley: Actor, Healer, Friend and would love to consider including your story in it.

Happy Birthday, DeForest Kelley!

Today would have been DeForest Kelley's 94th birthday. Wow! Unhappily for the rest of us, he didn't live to see his 80th roll around. But every year, reliably, I get notes, Facebook messages and other communications from stalwart fans of De's (Carl Rylander, John Bowersox, Marge Duff, Jim Westbrook and others) to remind me that they haven't forgotten him. I hope he's looking down and seeing how much love millions of people still have for him. He once said in an interview with Dan Madsen, "There's nothing deader than a dead actor. I sometimes wonder if they will remember me!" (To which I retorted in print something like (paraphrasing here), "They'll remember you, Mr. Kelley. They'll remember you!" And this was before I reconnected with him again in 1988 and began the amazing journey that ended up with me becoming his personal assistant and caregiver at the end of his life.

DeForest Kelley is ever-present in lots of people's minds--and for all the right reasons. He wasn't 'just' an actor--he was an earth angel with a terrific sense of humor, immense compassion for others, and a smile and blue eyes that lit up the world. Yes, he was a helluva actor. But he was a by-far even-better human being.

At his memorial service at Paramount, I said, "DeForest Kelley was the kind of man God had in mind when he created Adam. If this sad old world was more heavily-populated with DeForest Kelley types, it would be the paradise we all wish it was." He loved God (without being preachy in the least) and loved his neighbor as himself. (With a preacher as a father, he was well-grounded in theology, but not made proud or arrogant or holier-than-thou by it.) He believed in social justice. Everyone who knew him or even just saw him from a stage at a convention felt "beloved".

He was the rarest of all human beings and he did have a ministry: it was all of us who remember him on this day with affection and the yearning to tell him, once again, "Happy Birthday. De!"!

Transitioning from this Blog to wordwhisperer.net--Please Follow Me There!

For those of you who have been following me on this site, please know that most of my blog posts from now on will be at wordwhisperer.net. I will continue to post Star Trek and DeForest Kelley-related things here, of course, but nearly everything else will be at wordwhisperer.net, my business website.

And for those of you looking for a reputable, conscientious, pro-active WordPress web designer, please connect with Lisa Twining Taylor at tacomacomputertutor.com. She created my new website at wordwhisperer.net and has various examples of additional smoking-looking websites on her site. I highly recommend her!  

SERVAL SON TRAILERS

"Bless the Beasts and the Children"

"The Way We Were"

Watch DeForest Kelley In Some Great Interviews Here:

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?sk=&sc=1-25&qpvt=deforest+kelley+interview&q=deforest+kelley+interview%20&FORM=msnhal#

DeForest Kelley's Favorite Wild Cat Finally Gets His Own Book!

When De was in the hospital those final few months and I was caring for him, he kept saying I should write a book about Deaken. I kept saying, "Maybe someday."  Then he said I should at least dedicate a book to Deaken--so I did that in the first book I wrote about De. He would have liked that, had he lived to read it...

De's "orders from headquarters" have haunted me all these years. "Yeah," I agreed, "I really should write a book about my 'serval son'...but how do I do that without making every other cat lover on the planet want one of their own?"

It took me more than a decade to figure it out. And the answer was as obvious as the nose on my face: TELL IT ALL!!! 

Not just the good stuff, but ALL of it: the bad, scary, stressful, painful, infuriating, off-putting stuff, too.  It was only in writing a well-rounded book that I could convince myself to write it at all.

There are people selling pet servals and serval cross breeds like the Savannah Cat. I researched some of them while writing this book.  Some are pretty honest when it comes to what it takes to honorably take care of a serval, their environment, and the people in it. 

But none of them (that I could find) stress the down side enough because...after all..they want people to buy their servals!  A serval goes for upwards of $3K and, in this economy, serval and serval hybrid selling may be all these folks have to live on. So they focus heavily on the up side of having a wild cat.  That's business. All businesses do that or very few would make any money.

That's why I wanted to write a precautionary book.  The illegal  wild animal trade  in this country is second only to the drug underworld when it comes to income. I learned this from Tippi Hedren who owns and operates The Shambala Preserve/ROAR Foundation in Acton, California. Add to that the legal trade in exotic cats, and what  you have are a helluva lot of people getting wild cats as pets, status symbols, bragging rights units, and what have you. Are they trained? Do they have a blue clue what they're getting into? Where did they go for their training?

It's not fair to the animal and it's not fair to the neophyte owner whose impulse buy creates havoc in his or her life.  Get an animal legally and pay through the nose for the privilege and responsibility. Get one illegally and pay the same amount while constantly looking over your shoulder to see if anyone has found you out.

I can't even imagine having kept Deaken illegally.  It was stressful enough having him legally! (Wait till you read the chapter 'Condo Floods, Deaken Discovered.' That's as close as I ever cared come to getting caught red-handed with an "illegal"--disallowed--cat! ) If I had to worry every day of his life that he could be confiscated, after losing my heart to him, it would have been an utterly miserable 17 years!

So I hope the book does what it's meant to do. I hope it informs and entertains the reader and that it encourages anyone even thinking about buying a wild pet to think it through thoroughly. Because it will be a life-changer, something akin to as life-changing as deciding to have a baby.  Only this baby never grows up; it just gets bigger, has fangs and claws, and can do a number on anyone or anything that crosses its path, usually for perfectly legitimate reasons to its way of thinking.

Owning a wild animal is not for amateurs or for anyone who wants any kind of a normal life.

Read the book.  You'll laugh, you'll sigh, you'll cry.  And you'll know why it's an important book, too. Nothing like it has been written with such naked honesty before.

It'll open eyes and touch hearts. My prayer is that it will touch the reasoning center of readers' minds as well as it touches the emotional center. If it does, I've done my job and I will be satisfied.

SERVAL SON: Spots & Stripes Forever will be released Sept. 1 by FutureWord Publishers and will be available at all online bookstores and at FutureWord.net.  Request that your local libraries get copies!

Link to an Interview with Karl Urban

Karl mentions De Kelley with great fndness and respect toward the end of the piece. Enjoy!

http://thechronicleherald.ca/ArtsLife/1207086.html

The Infamous Striped Shirt Skits Revealed

In my first book about De, A Harvest of Memories, I alluded to a couple of "infamous," semi-bawdy, strictly-for-laughs, 100% fantasy striped shirt skits that I had written after I had seen De wearing a particularly "sexy" (to me) blue and white striped shirt. Several people have written to me saying they wanted to read them after reading my book. The skits were in the original manuscript but had to be edited out because of word count constraints. So I'm publishing them here for the first time.

If you're printing out these "outtakes" and placing them into my book where they belong, these skits belong with the chapter, "Humor... A Difficult Concept."

And after you've read them, you'll realize what a card and a rascal De Kelley was to actually WEAR the same shirt at the next convention he knew I would be attending. (That story is in my book.)

I'm just using bogus initials for the other friend in the skits because she doesn't want to be identified in any way. ("Names have been changed to protect the guilty!" ROTFL!)

Infamous Striped Shirt Skit #1

De is onstage in Oakland on Saturday

De (to F -- short for Friend) Hi, F!

MF: Hello, you handsome devil!

De: Well, thank you!

F: I call 'em as I see 'em.

De: I know you do. Glad you could make it. (To audience.) She's from Tennessee. She follows me everywhere. She's crazy about me.

F: (joking) No, I'm not. I just want to be in the audience the day you slip up and wear that blue and white striped shirt in front of Kris.

Kris: Shut up, F.

De: I don't get it...

Kris (nervous): Shut up, F.

F: If I don't warm him, he might actually wear the darned thing sometime.

Kris: You're right. And then I'd chew my knuckles to the bone. Maybe we should tell him. But how, without making me look like a fool?

F: Don't worry. Let me handle it. Trust me. (To De.) She likes that blue and white striped shirt you wore to dinner on the east coast Trek cruise. And you've worn it a few times since then -- to conventions Kris wasn't at.

De: Oh, I see. Well, I'll be sure and wear it tomorrow so you can see it in person, Kris.

Kris and F: NO!!!!!

Kris: Oh, God, no! Anything but that!

De: Now, that doesn't make any sense at all: tell me you like something particularly well, and then tell me NOT to wear it.

Kris: Drop it, F. Forget it. Please.

F: Don't worry. I can handle it. (To De.) It makes perfect sense. Kris likes you, and she LOVES that striped shirt. COMBINE the two and she can't be held responsible for her actions -- and I sure as hell can't hold her down!

De: You can't be serious. Are you telling me that my lack of a striped shirt is all that's keeping me safe from Kris?

Kris: (sweating bullets; leaping to her own defense) Well, I wouldn't go THAT far! (to F) Now that's enough!

F: That shirt acts as a sort of visual stimulant to her, I guess. Sort of like an aphroDEsiac...
(Everybody in the audience laughs like crazy.)

Kris: Gee, F, thanks for explaining it so I wouldn't be embarrassed! Next time I'll handle my OWN explanations, thank you very much!

De: (also laughing) Well, that's CRAZY!

Carolyn: CONSIDER THE SOURCE! AND THROW AWAY THAT SHIRT!


Infamous Striped Shirt #2

De arrives on stage on Sunday wearing the blue and white striped shirt!!! He's grinning like the Cheshire cat and looking straight at Kris, implying: GOT'CHA, KRAZY KRIS!

De: Good morning, Kris!

Kris: I don't believe it. You little sh--!

De: Do you like my shirt???

Kris: I love your shirt...

F: Kris, would you like my help beating him to a pulp?

Kris: No... Let him have his fun. We'll see who gets the last laugh. (To De.) Okay, smarty pants, you want to live dangerously... (She gets up and heads for the stage)

De: (laughing) What are you going to do to me?

Kris: I don't give away the ending of a story any more often than you do.

De: You're not going to do anything you'll regret later, are you?

Kris: Why Deee... there's nothing I could do to you that I would regret later...

De: (smile fading, a wee bit of alarm setting in) Kris -- are you going to do anything to me that I would regret later?!

Kris: Gee, I don't know... I guess we'll find out!

De: Kris... F? Help?

F: Sorry, De. You were warned. You made your bed. Now you're going to have to lie in it. (F gets up, looking as if she'll assist Kris)

De: OK, you two! Enough is enough. Just WAIT a minute!

Kris (arriving on stage, fondles the material on De's sleeve): Nice material, De...

De: OK, I surrender. You win. Let's call it even.

Kris: EVEN? I haven't even BEGUN to get even!

De: CAROLYN! Help me!

Carolyn: Sorry, De. You have it coming. I TOLD you not to wear that shirt!

De: CAROLYN! (Carolyn shakes her head and crosses her arms, showing no mercy or sympathy.) (De to the girls) OK, I'm taking this shirt off, right now. OK?

F: Great idea. That'll get KRIS off your back, at least.

Kris: Of course, then you'll have F to contend with. She just LOVES hairy chests -- especially yours.

De: Oh, dear... Look, ladies... I'm sorry. I was just trying to add a little levity to these proceedings.

Kris: Well, I'm entertained.

F: Me, too. I don't think I've ever had a better time...

De: Uh... perhaps I'll read my second poem now...

Kris: If you think you can...

De: (clears his throat) "Twenty years ago in a galaxy far, far away..." (Kris starts unbuttoning De's shirt.) Oh, crap... where was I?

Kris: Beats me!

F: Frankly, my dear, we don't give a damn!

De: CAROLYN, LOVE OF MY LIFE, MY WIFE, MY SALVATION! If you love me, you will come up here right this minute and tell these two women to leave me alone!

Carolyn (to Sue, De's fan club Prez): I think he's had enough. He's about ready to cry.

Sue: I agree. Poor guy...

Carolyn: All right, girls. At ease!

F: (to Carolyn) Thanks for the heads up about the shirt, Carolyn. We worked hard on this got'cha half the night, and it went even better than planned!

De: You -- you PLANNED this?! (glaring at Carolyn, completely flabbergasted)

Carolyn: Well, of course, dear. You DON'T think I'd have let it go on this long if I wasn't in on it, so you?

De: I am going to BURN this shirt! And if I didn't like the three of you so well, I'd...

C, F and K: You'd --- ????

De: I don't know. There's nothing I can come up with that's appropriate punishment! I'd like to turn you ALL over my knee!

F: Ooh, sounds like FUN!

De: Oh, Lord... here we go again...

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Perhaps you have a little better understanding of how I "achieved" the moniker "Krazy Kris" in STAR TREK fandom?

There's plenty additional evidence in the book, so those of you who have read it know already that the name fits... or did, in the earliest days of my association with the Kelleys.

Next Installment -- DE-Mented: Crazy About De

OK, over the past week at some point I found the original (unedited) manuscript of my first book about De Kelley (DeFOREST KELLEY: A HARVEST OF MEMORIES, My Life and Times with a Remarkable Gentleman Actor). I'm going through it to glean the DE-mented, crazy stuff that was edited out due to lack of space and due to the fact that the book would debut just two years after his passing which, to many fans and me, was still within the period of mourning. (I was trying to keep the volume a bit more sedate and respectful than our association actually was, out of respect for his fans who would be reading it and coming to grips again with his passing toward the end of it.)

Y'all so enjoyed the Bunny Rabbit "Trekker Treat" story a few blogs ago that I'm encouraged to dig out "the rest of the story" and let you in on some more of the insanity. I think you'll appreciate De all the more for his wild sense of humor after this is all over!

Here you go. Enjoy!

The following adventure took place not long after the letter I sent De on page 20 of DeFOREST KELLEY: A HARVEST OF MEMORIES... in case you're keeping track.. very early on in the newly-budding association I was at that time developing with the Kelleys. By this time in the story, I had met them only once (May 4, 1968); had not yet gone to a second convention or re-met them in person and had dinner with them in Denver. In other words, I was still very much on the outer edges of fandom, but was writing to them and keeping them grinning...

So, with that little bit of background information, here we go. (Print it out and place it into the book after page 20, if you want.)

In November, I planned the next adventure. I would fly to Tampa, Florida for De's next convention, in January. Then my car broke down, and I was suddenly penniless again. I was livid... I was sad... I was DE-straught. But I was resolved not to let this "little" (ARGHHH!) tragedy kill me.

The week before the con, I went to the dentist for a check-up. The experience there provided all the ammunition needed for the next funny letter to the Kelleys.

I wrote:

"Dear Ones:

I want to pass along to you some vital professional advice. It's revolutionary.

Up until today, I thought I had heard it all. But I was wrong.

Today I went in for my regular dental check-up. The dentist looked around in my oral cavity and couldn't find anything on my teeth worth complaining about, so he asked, "And do you also brush your tongue?"

??????????????????

If he hadn't had both hands and some sort of lethal-looking device shoved halfway down my throat, I would have laughed. Instead, I almost choked. When he let me up for air, I said, "You're joking, right?"

"Not at all."

He was serious! He said that people who brush their tongues taste food better. He said that bacteria found on the teeth are also on the tongue; it only made sense that they should receive similar treatment.

O.K. I accepted that; it sounded logical. But that led me to ask, "But -- how do you brush your tongue without gagging?"

He had an answer for that, too. He said, "Stick your tongue out and pant while you brush."

I was beginning to wonder if I had run into one of those dentists you're not supposed to trust as far as you can throw them. (I'm still not sure I didn't!) But now I am dutifully brushing my tongue, as well as my teeth. And it gags me every time, because I refuse to pant in a house where others live and where the walls are thin. I mean, can you IMAGINE?!

"What's she DOING in there?! (silence) (long pause) "I TOLD you we should have had her confined when she started talking to animals, but NO! YOU said she'd out-grow it! And now THIS!"

But the dentist is right: food DOES taste better! (Just what I need, is for food to taste better: I'm already 30 pounds overweight!)

I have been thinking about this conversation ever since. And I thought, "Well, I'll bet THIS is something Carolyn and De haven't been written to about before! It isn't easy coming up with a letter of the month to you that won't end up sounding like old hat, you know. I mean, don't you get tired of hearing how wonderful you are, how you have changed people's lives for the better... all that serious, mushy stuff? Isn't it REFRESHING to know you can always count on me to update you on oral hygiene and other medical and dental advances now and then?

Love you,

Kris (pant, pant)

I sent that letter off on a Monday, the week before the Tampa convention weekend. I didn't figure they would even receive it until after the convention, so I wasn't expecting anything the day my Florida friend (with whom I was planning to visit and hobnob with at the convention while in Florida) called to give me the lowdown on what was happening back there on the east coast.

She floored me by saying, right off the bat, "Oh, Kris, the most awful thing happened..."

My throat fell into my shoes. "What?!" I cried.

She said, "My car broke down on my way to the convention, and I missed De's appearance completely!"

I was so upset by that, I started saying, "Oh, no! Oh, NO!" so much that she finally had to tell me to shut up so she could tell me the rest of her story. "But I DID get to see him AFTER his appearance."

"Oh, SUPER!" I said. "Where was he?"

"HE WAS IN THE BATHROOM, BRUSHING HIS TONGUE!"

I screamed, no doubt deafening her.

As it turned out, my friend had seen De and had ended up on the same shuttle flight between the Tampa and Fort Lauderdale conventions. De had invited her into first class to sit with him and Carolyn, and they had gotten to talking about this goofy letter I had sent them, so De had decided to have my friend play this silly joke on me. He had directed my friend to hang up on me as soon as she reached the punchline (so it would sink in that there was NO WAY she would even have known about the brushing-the-tongue letter without him having told her), but she couldn't bring herself to do that.

Now, remember, I still hadn't spent more than 15 minutes with the Kelleys over the course of 18 years. I couldn't believe that they would go out of their way like this to make me feel a part of the convention I was so heartbroken over not being able to attend.

My friend called me all weekend long to tell me what was happening. One night the Kelleys even came very close to calling me on the phone from a restaurant that they and my friend were at, except that the place was jam-packed and they were hidden back in a quiet alcove. De would have had to risk being spotted going to the phone, and that would have turned the whole evening into an unscheduled personal appearance, so reluctantly, he finally decided against the idea. He told her, "You'll have to tell Kris that, in this instance, it's the thought that counts!"

And, of course, it was everything. I'll never forget it.

The next convention was two months later, in Denver. My friend had joked with De at the Florida con, "Well, I drove all the way here to spend your birthday woth YOU, so now we will fly to Denver in March so you can spend our birthdays with US!" De asked, "Your birthdays are in March?" She said, "Uh-oh. Yeah..." De said, "I won't forget that, you know..."
We started fantasizing what De might mean by, "I won't forget your birthdays." At one point, I kidded, "Gee! Maybe we'll end up at dinner!" (I was sad because I had missed out on the dinner in Florida, so it was on my mind, big-time.) Then I added, "I'd even pay for it -- providing we go to McDonalds!" My friend lost it over that "plan of action."
The ridiculous scenario hit her like a ton of bricks, so both us us started writing goofy skits in which we wind up at McDonalds in Denver with De and Carolyn. The skits had De posing beneath the golden arches with both of the birthday girls until he was frozen like a popsicle in the icy temperatures; they had him sucking helium out of balloons and yelling, "He's dead, Jim!" in a falsetto; all sorts of crazy, riotous stuff.
My friend wrote to the Kelleys, telling them just enough about the skits to get the basics, and then sent a $5 book of McDonald's gift certificates to them, asking them if they might enclose them in a birthday card to me! De did better than that: On a post-it note emblazoned with "Trust Me: I'm a Doctor" he wrote "maybe you can use these in Denver!"
I haven't the faintest memory of anything else I received that year for my birthday, but I've never forgotten De's post-it note!
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

It was at the next convention, in Denver two months later, that I actually re-connected one-on-one in person again with the Kelleys... and they never let me go after that. But that's all in my first book about De. In case you haven't already read it, now would be a good time! There's a link to it in the first paragraph of this blog entry. Hint, hint...

You won't be sorry if you click on it and actually get the book. Check out the reviews at Amazon and other online bookstores...

If any of these blog posts give you a grin or anything else of value please tweet them! Thank you!

Update -- and a Brand New Kelley Story to Enjoy!

Finished a 20 hour, $500 project today and started another one. WOO HOO!

Also went to the movie today with the wee ones again. Wendy, Jamie, Casey and I saw Horton Hears a Who, a Dr. Seuss classic that's even better with the voiceovers of Jim Carrey, Steve Carrell and Carol Burnett. I've seen the movie before, but twice is not too many times. I'd probably enjoy seeing it a third time, and a fourth, way down the road sometime. Very clever, very well done.

I fertilized the lawn and watered it today since the temperature was slated to reach only 75 degrees today and tomorrow. After that it's soaring into the 90's again. I wish it would stay 75 for the next four days, but that isn't going to happen. My garage sale is Friday and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m...

If I think I can survive it, I want to help out at the northbound Rochester rest stop (south of Olympia) on Monday from 6 a.m. to noon or 2. Don't know if I can make it past 10 though, if the temperature is going to skyrocket. I dehydrate and overheat very easily these days. The rest area is in the trees, so that should reduce the temperature by 15 or 20 degrees, I think. I'll call Vernita on Sunday and see how they're faring. I just need a little encouragement to know I won't die doing a good deed. (It's a fundraiser for the women's ministry at CFAN. They're offering free coffee to travelers and accepting donations.)

What else? My hair is getting too long. I have given it four months to hang down to the lower part of my jaw, but I just can't handle it anymore. I tug on it all the time and it feels like straw. I don't think it looks that much better on me, either, although others disagree. I just don't want to have to mess with it, and so I don't, and then it looks like I don't mess with it, so shorter is better for me. I'm gonna get it chopped off next time I go in. Yes. And the sooner the better.

The baby birds are almost too big for their nest anymore. I'll catch a few more photos of them -- better ones this time, I hope -- before they fly away. I expect they'll start thinking about that in the next week or so.

Yesterday I took photos of the garden and of Jackie with its first fruits -- an armful of zucchini and a quart or more of peas. We had mushrooms and zucchini for dinner last night with peapods on the side. Scrumptious. There's nothing like homegrown produce. And those peas are producing so fast it's hard to keep up.

Guess that's about it for now. Oh... I owe you a new De story, don't I? *sigh* OK... Here you go..

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Trekker Treat

The Kelley Home

A friend and I were going to knock on A.C. Lyles' Bel Air door one year at Halloween time dressed in the most pathetic (by design) rabbit costumes possible, and say we were there to audition for a sequel to De's movie NIGHT OF THE LEPUS (a.k.a. in fandom as Attack of the Killer Bunnies), which AC produced and directed. (I was also AC's star polisher at the time, so he knew me and my friend well enough that he wouldn't call Bel Air Security or shoot us when we arrived at the door.)

We fashioned ears out of white panty hose/leotards and placed cardboard into them so that when we pulled them onto our heads, they'd look really, really dumb! (Again, by design.)

We got mens white BVDs/briefs and pulled those on over white jogging pants and glued gaudy, misshapen bunny tails onto them. We had something on for t-shirts but I don't recall now what those looked like. (That's why I wish I could get to my journals or the unedited version of HARVEST OF MEMORIES right now... but I can't.)

Ready, set... all that remained was to call AC's wife to make sure they'd be home so we could surprise him with this outlandish stunt.

We called. The phone rang. Martha Lyles picked up the phone, listened, laughed, and then said, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this but AC isn't even in town right now. He's back on the east coast campaigning for President (George Herbert Walker) Bush. I'm sorry you went to all that trouble for nothing."

Deflated, disappointed, and frustrated, we hung up. Then my friend perked up noticeably. I asked, "What"?'

She said, "Let's do it to De."

I said, "No way."

She said, "Oh c'mon! It was his movie, too -- and we've spent a small fortune here on these asinine costumes."

I repeated: "No way. Absolutely -- no -- way -- in -- hell with you catch me in the Kelley neighborhood in these getups."

"Why not?"

"Because I visit there. His neighbors think I'm sane. No way am I going to give them any other way to think of me."

My friend moped... and moped... and moped... until I began to consider her dumb idea.

She saw that and perked up again, like a dog about to be tossed a bone or a ball.

Damn...

"All right..."

She jumped up.

"All right," I repeated, "but it goes against everything I believe in. I can act like an idiot in Bel Air, because nobody knows me there, but Sherman Oaks is different..."

She already had the door open against the possibility that I might back out on the idea.

We went...

We drove to the Kelleys address, got out of the car... My friend grabbed a handful of Science Diet kibble and held it tightly in one fist. That did not bode well at all, but I had no idea...

We walked up to the front door of the Kelley abode and knocked.. waited... knocked again...

Suddenly we heard the garage door open "behind" us. (Take a look at the configuration of the Kelley home in the photo above, and you'll see where the front door is -- to the left side of the garage up a little walkway -- and you'll know what I mean.) We turned to face the street and the direction from which the sound of a garage door opening was emanating.

Around the corner came De, blocking our escape. He didn't look any too happy. He threw a look across the street to see if any of his neighbors were witnessing the atrocity, and saw they weren't. That seemed to relieve him. But he still didn't look overjoyed to see us.

My friend fake-hopped over to where he was, fist of Science Diet kibble held under her tail, and when she got to him, she "crapped" it onto the sidewalk and said, "Oh, Mr. Kelley, I'm so excited to see you again!"

Fastidious De looked down at the bouncing, rolling kibble, frowned, and knelt down to begin retrieving it. I was mortified. My friend (by now she was quickly becoming my former friend, for having dragged me into this embarrassing fiasco) knelt, too, and started to help him pick up the fake poop, but De would have none of it. He stood back up, frowned like the great badass actor he was, and pointed toward his front door. "Get inside the house. Now. Get. Inside. Now."

It was as close to Toby Jack Saunders as I ever saw him get in real life.

We. Went. Inside. The. House. No further questions asked. Yes, sir, Mr. Kelley!

Once inside, a cheery voice called out, "Hi, girls! Come on back!"

We scurried to the work room, where Carolyn sat. She howled when she saw us. "What on earth are you two up to now?" she asked.

I quickly said, "We were going to go trick or treating at AC's and do a NIGHT OF THE LEPUS number on him, but he's back east campaigning for the President..." I glared at my friend so she'd finish the story, but she didn't... so I added, "So 'we' -- cough cough -- decided we shouldn't waste our efforts and ... came here instead."

oh please, oh, please, Carolyn, figure this one out and realize that it was not my idea!

By this time De came into the house, into the workroom, and joined Carolyn in a chair across from us. I decided he really wasn't mad; he had just been "portraying" pissed.

He looked at both of us sitting there in our pathetic costumes and shook his head. Then he offered, "You know, in those rabbit ears, you two look a little bit like nuns."

My friend laughed and replied, "No one has ever thought of me as a nun before!" and De retorted, "I'm sure of that!"

I was blushing horribly and since I was dressed all in white, it showed.

That's the first and last time I ever trick or treated at the Kelley home. And it was under duress, I can assure you.

Still... as I revisited it again just now, I was laughing so hard and so loud that Jackie came over to see what was happening over here... so it's a memory that I treasure to my toes now!

I tell you... we were insane back in the good old days of yesteryear...

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The DE-Mented (Crazy About De) Side of Me...

This afternoon Dr. Mary Jo Robinson and I spent a couple hours watching convention tapes of De. It was a lot of fun and reminded me of his fun, funny side and all the ways we frequently cracked each other up before life became so blasted serious and precarious toward the end of his time on earth. I have been living in the aftermath of his loss for so long that I more or less laid the humorous memories aside, other than the couple dozen or so that I put into the first book I wrote about him (DeFOREST KELLEY: A HARVEST OF MEMORIES).

Then I got an email from Mary Doman today (whose essay in the newest book about De, ENDURING LEGACY, is nothing short of fabulous) telling me that she hopes I'll still write the book about De that I intended to write before I got the idea for ENDURING LEGACY; a book that tells "the rest of the story" of my fun association with the Kelleys: all the silly, fun stuff I edited out of the first tome so that readers

a.) would be able to lift the blasted thing and

b.) not have to pay an arm and a leg for it

Talk about perfect timing.

But... another book? Eegads...

A book is hard work, really hard work, even when they're labors of love. And I barely broke even on the other two I wrote about De, not because they aren't good, not because people who read them don't love them, but because the mass media folks couldn't care less about letting people know they exist! (The reviews at Amazon are mostly 5-stars and at Payloadz they're 100% 5-stars and the e-book is still #1 in the non-fiction category nearly two months after its debut.)

And publicizing via the social media route is so time-consuming that if I did that as often as I "must" to keep the information out there, I'd wind up bleary-eyed for my day job (copy writing at Elance), at which I have to be very, very sharp to keep earning glowing reviews and additional clients! So it's kind of a Catch-22: I can write good books, but where do I find enough hours in the day to multi-task (Elance work and viral networking, plus life as a homeowner, yard mower, weed puller, vegetable gardener, sister and auntie) and still stay sane and viable? It's a pickle!

So, since I need to make money if I'm going to be investing significant time writing more about De (this time totally humorously), Mary suggested that I "blog" the stories going forward and when I have enough of them down in black and white, I can compile them into an e-book and offer them for sale. This way, she says, I'll only be investing the time I usually invest in blogging and won't need to take time away from my real job to make headway on it.

Hmmm... Sounds totally do-able.

But...

Doesn't logic suggest, Mr. Spock, that if people can get stuff for free (via this blog) they probably won't bother to buy the same stories in e-book form later?

Mr. Spock : "Not necessarily. Many people glean postings from their blogs and create viable e-books with the information. However, if memory serves, most of them are 'how-to' or technical books."

Oh joy... (Vulcans sure can be wet blankets at times...)

Mary says she will buy one, for sure! So I have one confirmed buyer! The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step!

So now I'm going to ask YOU: If I do as Mary suggests, and you get to read all (or almost all) of my previously-unpublished funny De-related tales for free right here on my blog in the days and weeks to come (off and on), would you, too, be willing to buy a compilation of the same material if it's offered for under $5 at some time in the future, to share with friends and/or to keep for yourself in one convenient volume?

I need some encouragement, here. I don't need to make a killing, but I do need to know that people would value a De-based (debased?!) book of humor enough to buy it at some point... and tell others about it... and purchase a few extras as gifts, even...

(Hey, you could do the same thing with the two existing De books, too, and the other three really good books I've written that aren't De related.)

[No pressure! wink, wink]

Whaddaya say?

Let me hear from you! Would you help support this "starving artist" if I blog my best stuff before publishing it? LET ME KNOW!

A Humor Sampler

(no real-life anecdotes included, yet, but I have a bunch of them!)

A never-before published limerick that I wrote and sent to the Kelleys:

It isn't all a bad dream -

I'm as stuck on you as I seem.

If you had your druthers,

You might prefer others -

Or even the transporter beam!

A never-before-published poem I wrote about the RowDE Cowboy:

(based on a real incident)

Now, De was a cowboy with flair

He rode side-by-side without care

'Til one day, while dismountin'

He spurred he next mount an'

Spent half of the scene in midair!

Song I co-wrote to the tune of Yellow Rose of Texas:

(semi-raunchy ranch humor)

De is De Rowdy Cowboy

We girls just love to love

His eyes are even bluer

Than Texas skies above

You can talk about Roy Rogers

Or the dudes from Lonesome Dove

But De's the only cowboy

That we will ever love.

My mama told me not to love

A man with big blue eyes

He'd only steal my heart away

And tell me lots of lies

But let him tell me all those lies

and lead me to the straw

'Cause De's the sexiest cowboy

That I have ever saw!

Can you tell I started out as a silly, starry-eyed teenager?

Yup! And it was a lot of fun!

Then I grew up

and life got seriouser and seriouser...

but we still laughed and laughed

right up until the end.

It sure beat crying!

"Return with us now, to those thrilling days of yesteryear.

The RowDE Cowboy rides again!"

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If any of these blog posts give you a grin or anything else of value please tweet them! Thank you!

Thank You, DeForest Kelley...

I face a blank page here... wondering where to start...

I've been contacted several times already today - via phone and email - telling me that others are thinking about De today, too, and thanking me for being there for him and Carolyn when they needed someone they could count on.

Sometimes it seems it just happened; at other times, it seems like it couldn't possibly have happened the way it did, that it must all have been a really great dream that ended very sad...

When someone you love and rely on for wise input and undying encouragement dies, you go into a kind of shock, especially when you have to carry on, make arrangements, be strong for somebody else. You manage to function in a fog, day to day, like an animal, out of memory, out of instinct more than out of any real desire.

Over time, as the numbness fades and the big hole in your life (where your friend once stood) yawns before you, you find healing to be slow. You're alternately angry, afraid, confused. You wonder anew if the tales of heaven are true or only fabrications of a mind that refuses to let go of the person you loved and the person you are. You realize you MUST see them again, be with them again, to tell them that even though you appreciated them in life, you had no idea how little you could measure their worth to your world until they were gone.

I'm lucky in so many ways. When it comes to De, I have hours of convention tapes to keep me company when I feel a need to re-connect visually, viscerally. Not that I do it much, because even though it's cool, it's never enough. It isn't now, it isn't here, it isn't real. It was real, but now it's just a memory, as blessed and as wonderful as memories are.

I think, "People like De should never die. They're too valuable. They love like too few others do."

I interact with other Christians frequently, and see glimpses of De in them, but even in this rarefied atmosphere, so few of them seem to "get" Christ and his message in the way De did. God's message ("love one another") inhabited De the way beauty inhabits a rose. Never a Bible-thumper or preacher, De was simply a mirror -- a reflector of God's love and light.

St. Francis' saying fit De to a T: "Preach the gospel always. If necessary, use words."

It's this quality I miss most about De. He knew what a failed human being I am, when compared against my actual potential. I have always wanted to grow up to be just like De, a reflection of Christ (since becoming like De seems at least remotely do-able, while becoming like Christ -- completely perfect and without sin -- does not).

De was a touchstone for me. Here was a man who had mastered the art of being in the world but not of the world. His ministry was to lift up the downcast and downtrodden and help them realize they are worthy of love.

He was an encourager, a helper, a reliable beacon, and an invaluable friend. I have no doubt whatsoever that when he arrived in heaven ten years and fifteen minutes ago, he heard, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

De, I miss you, love you, and will never forget you. And I look forward to seeing you again soon. You are as irreplaceable in my life as you are in eternity.


http://trekmovie.com/2009/06/11/remembering-deforest-kelley-2/

"Our relationships are the only things we carry with us into eternity."

Pastor Bill Wolfson, Church For All Nations