December 12, 2006
Coldest day yet. Met Joe Yaeger on the road and he's from Kansas and when he says, "Kind of nippy out here," you know it's cold.

Dan Harshberger's sister Charlene, found another photo of Dan and me in their mother's belongings. This one is dated 1961 and shows Dan and me on my brand new Montgomery Ward Mo-ped. That's Dan on the back and yes, he's either goosing me, or hanging on to the crappy seat I'm sitting on. As Dan mentioned in his accompanying Email, "check out those Chuy shaped New York flattops!" Chuy was the haircutter everyone wanted in Kingman and it cost $2 to get the bitchin' flattop style. Amazing



Speaking of old friends, if you've ever wondered what my friends really say behind my back, check out the following link:

http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/?p=740

Wonderful Russ wrote it, and gives me a ribbing for always trying to get him to, as he puts it, to visit "dirt clod" sites. That's his term for anything Old West. Ha.

One of my favorite memories of Great Big Wonderful, as we call him, happened in Vegas back in the late eighties. Reid Reeker, our general manager at KSLX radio station, treated the whole staff to a Christmas party in Vegas. The station paid for our flights on Southwest and got us rooms at the brand new Excaliber Hotel. If I remember correctly, Russ was in a tough spot at that time. He hadn't started his mega-successful real estate business, or it wasn't off the ground yet, so I gave him $15 and told him to go play blackjack. He went over to a $5 table, played a hand and won, then the dealer blackjacked and got 21 the hard way and as they scooped up Russ's last chip, he stood up and yelled, "What is this, some kind of Mafia deal, where you let us win, then you suck us in and take all our money?!" Pit bosses from a mile away descended on the table and we just managed to explain ourselves ("we do a morning radio show and it's about humor!") get him clear.

Later we were treated to a big dinner downstairs in the big jousting arena. While we were fed Rennaissance fair fare, different knights and magicians came into the arena and entertained us with fighting and jousting and cool stunts. Our waitress made the mistake of encouraging Russ to root for "our knight" who was wearing purple to match the section we were sittting in, which was also purple. No sooner had the waitress left, than our knight got into it with a red knight and the purple knight got unhorsed and was fighting for his life right in front of us. Russ stood up and boomed out, " You f#@king A#*hole, stop that! You are going to hurt someone!" The waitress ran over to us with a panicked look. "Not like that! Not like that! It's just pretend," she kept pleading at the same time pushing her hands downward to convey lowering his voice. But the cat was out of the bag and Russ continued to implore all the knights to "get along" and stop all this "needless fighting." It was classic Russ and we all laughed until we cried.

Believe it or not, a photographer came over and asked us if we wanted to commemorate this momentous event and we said yes, and here is a photo of Kathy, me, Russ and Wendy taken only moments after the big outburst. Russ later admitted he doesn't remember much of the dinner, but it is a Zane Moment I will never forget.



"When we realize we're all mad, then the whole world suddenly makes sense."
—Mark Twain