Back in February of 1996, I didn’t have a website or a Christmas newsletter - but I did already have the gumption to pick up and travel to distant lands at the drop of a hat. I made the rather spontaneous decision to travel via motorcar all the way to Minneapolis, Minnesota to attend the St. Paul Block-Heads Tent’s 30th Anniversary banquet weekend. The goings-on that first weekend of March ‘96 were enough to entice me to look into the possiblity of attending. But the real clincher was that Gordon “Porky” Lee from the Our Gang was scheduled to be in attendance.
I’ll cover the meeting with Porky in the next 1996 posting. For now, I’ll just concentrate on the trip itself and the rest of the banquet weekend. When I initially expressed interest in coming to Minneapolis, Block-Heads Grand Sheik Tracy Tolzmann informed me that it was possible that Porky would not be in attendance. I decided to go ahead and go for it anyways based on the rest of the program and began making arrangements.
Lisa and I left in my little Toyota Celica on the morning of Thursday, February 29 (it was a Leap Year!). This was no quick jaunt, but 700 miles of road in the excruciatingly cold weather - about 14 hours each way. In fact, we were expecting blizzards over the weekend. We drove all day and the first sign of trouble came when I realized that I did not have my credit card with me which threw me into a panic. I called Mom and had her go over to our apartment and see if she could find it. She did, sitting under one of the couch endtables. This set my mind at ease a little bit, but unfortunately we had no money.
We stayed overnight at a motel in Chicago, and fortunately the clerk agreed to charge the credit card with the number that I had given to secure the room. (I would probably not be so conscientious nowadays to book the room in advance). I then called Tracy to see if he might be able to front me some moolah. I’m sure he said yes, but eventually Lisa realized that she had written a check for the apartment rent and I had not cashed it, so she was able to withdraw funds from an ATM. Whew! Oh, but I forgot to mention that I had forgotten to pack underwear.
We drove all day on Friday and wound up in Minneapolis that afternoon. We stayed at the Hoiday Inn Express across the street from the Mall of America - technically in Bloomington. I remember that it was one of the coldest weekends I had ever experienced - the kind where your hair freezes when you walk outside. I could hardly stand it.
That evening we drove to the home of Tracy and Merrie Tolzmann for a welcoming of out-of-town Sons of the Desert members. Our friends Tony and Lois Laurel Hawes, Rob Birarelli, Scott and Jan MacGillavray, Jack Roth, and Dick Bann had all come in for the event. We had lasagna, oriental salad (my first time!), and homemade ice-cream. Everyone gathered around Tracy’s antique player piano and belted out some old classics. He showed Lisa and I his amazing collection of piano rolls.
On Saturday, Lisa and I spent the afternoon in the Mall of America. We browsed the four floors and more than four million square feet all afternoon. I bought a Mad Alfred E. Neuman halogram which is sitting in front of me as I type this and some of that much-needed underwear (also sitting in front of me as I type this). We had lunch at the always-crummy Planet Hollywood. I think Lisa enjoyed this part of the trip the most.
For traveling so far to attend the event, I took surprisingly few photos of our weekend. Here’s the roller coaster and giant blow-up Snoopy inside the Mall of America. That black silhouette is Lisa
As I was saying, I’m quite embarassed by my choice of photos…as you can see, I had recently been bitten by the Wrestling bug.
The evening banquet was actually held inside a room in the Mall. We had a great dinner and saw a nifty magic show in which Laurel and Hardy look-a-likes factored into the act. One of the other reasons (besides Porky) that I came was to see the film line-up. They were showing the newly discovered version of Habeas Corpus with the original music soundtrack, and 16mm Kodachrome version of The Tree in a Test Tube, and most significantly, some rare footage of Oliver Hardy at the Boulder Dam with Guy Kibbee and That’s That, which was Stan Laurel’s original print. The final two films were brought along by Tony and Lois Laurel Hawes.
There are not many people who have seen the film That’s That, which was put together by Roach editor Bert Jordan and presented to Stan for his 38th birthday, and I am proud to be one among them. Most people assume it is an outtake reel when in fact it is more like an avant-garde assemblage of various scenes and garbled nonsense shot on the Hal Roach lot. I do recall that at one point we get to hear Stan Laurel’s stand-in Ham Kinsey actually speak! Think of it as Laurel and Hardy’s version of Revolution 9.
It was great to be with many of my Sons friends for the weekend. I recall Dick Bann bringing along a modern-day magazine clipping featuring Our Gang Sidney “Woim” Kibrick, Jack Roth correcting me on my identification of Sidney Toler in the last Dante’s Info, and Lois Laurel going out of her way to show me her father’s editor’s lens - which I had mis-identified in an issue of Dante’s as a monocle. But most memorable of all was that I was asked to give one of the standard Sons of the Desert toasts. I had never given one before (our tent bypassed such conventional things) - and as I recall, this one certainly wasn’t the most memorable. It was to Stan, so I had the added pressure of giving it in front of his daughter! Afterward, the toasters remained up front and led the group in the singing of the Sons song (as seen at top).
The first toast
We finished up the weekend on Sunday morning with the special screening of Block-Heads (and the shorts Two Tars and Them Thar Hills) at the local Oak Street Cinema. I was ecstatic to see this matinee completely sold out and hear the crowd roar with laughter at the old films. Lisa and I headed out straight from the theater, beginning our long, cold haul home. We stopped at Taco Bell for dinner and stayed overnight in the Wisconsin Dells. The only reason I picked this place was because my family and I had stayed there in 1988 on the way back from the Minneapolis Sons convention.
Cracker Barrell provided our breakfast on the morning of Monday, March 4 and then we progressed toward our homestead. We arrived at 6:30pm. Somehow we had managed to miss getting stuck in any blizzard traffic. As I recall, the snow came down east of us on our way there and west of us on our way back, following us all the way.
I wrote an article about our experiences this weekend in the next Dante’s Info #16 entitled Thirty Years of Fun - a reference to an L&H compilation film and the Block-Heads‘ anniversary age.
More about “Porky” when we continue…
Your reminiscing about the Block-Heads’ 30th anniversary celebration has brought many fond memories back for Merrie and I. With your permission, I’ll add a few thoughts of my own on that fun weekend…
First, the temperatures: The late winter of ‘96 was one of the coldest on record, and for Minnesota! We had had a mild February, so all of the snow had melted, which made the sub-zero temperatures during the anniversary weekend seem even colder than they were!
Tony and Lois Laurel Hawes had no idea of what they were in for! Fortunately, they only had to endure the outdoors for brief periods, hurrying from warm buildings into warmed-up vehicles and back into warm buildings. While you had fogotten your credit card and underwear, Tony was unprepared for the bitter cold in the “socks” department. Being used to the California climate, Tony’s hosiery was very light weight. One of the first orders of business was to visit the local WalMart so Tony could buy thermal stockings!
We had a bit of a media blitz to publicize our open-to-the-public 35mm screening that weekend. Lois appeared on local radio and TV, including Minnesota Public Radio, whose host, Michael Rabe, was the son of an old friend of Stan Laurel. John Rabe was a close friend of L&H’s biographer, Dr. John McCabe, and one of the organizers of the Detroit Dancing Cuckoos tent. While Tony and I sat patiently in MPR’s lobby waiting for Lois, Michael interviewed her for use on that day’s edition of the nationally syndicated ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. Not knowing exactly when the interview would air, it was only by dumb luck that I happened to hear the completed interview late that afternoon. Michael used sound clips of an interview his father had conducted with Stan many years earlier. A highlight to the piece was when Michael played an archival question from his father which elicited a big laugh from Stan…you know, that great laugh Stan could have, and then intercutting the same question, posed by Michael to Lois, and Lois reacting with the identical “Laurel” laugh. Pure joy! My big regret is that no one in town for the weekend got to hear the piece, and I was not able to get a copy of it from MPR. (It seems Michael Rabe was reluctant to let copies of his father’s Stan Laurel material out, even if it was only short snipettes!)
The publicity certainly worked. As you pointed out, the 400-seat theatre was sold out. (We only wish we could have forseen the response and planned and advertised a second show. Ah, the down side of “playing it safe” when doing a public Sons event.) Block-Heads has a long history of presenting some interesting film programs, and the 30th anniversary show was no exception. Our former Grand Sheik and No. One Hal Roach expert Dick Bann provided the newly-restored original soundtrack HABEAS CORPUS. Scott and Jan MacGillivray brought their Kodachrome print of TREE IN A TEST TUBE, and Lois and Tony brought THAT’S THAT, which was the second time Block-Heads had the priveledge of screening the rarity. The surprize item was the home movie footage of Babe Hardy with Guy Kibee (and Douglas Dumbrille, I believe) on a trip to view the construction of the Boulder (now Hoover) Dam. What a treat!!!
Tracy Tolzmann
May 3rd, 2008
As you might expect, planning a weekend like the Block-Heads’ 30th anniversary was quite an undertaking…a sort of mini-Sons convention…and was rather stressful for yours truly. Will Lois and Tony arrive okay? Will the other out-of-towners be okay? Will everyone have a ride to our home out in the sticks? (Sunrise, Minnesota is about an hour north of the Twin Cities. It’s the birthplace of the recently late Richard Widmark.) Will the dinner be good? Will our “vaudeville” show be too boring? Will the film program go off without a hitch? You get the idea. Well, on Sunday afternoon at the Oak Street Cinema, with standing-room only and our 35mm screening under way, I finally had a chance to sit down in the seat being saved for me…on the aisle in the last row. Seated next to me was Lois, and as the pristine print of TWO TARS progressed to the building laughter, I was overcome with euphoria! “This is great!!!”, I thought. I’m sitting in a theater full of people who are laughing uproariosly at the antics of Stan and Babe, and I’m sitting next to Stan Laurel’s daughter–STAN’S DAUGHTER!!!–who is laughing like she’s seeing the film for the first time! That is one of the fondest memories I have in all of my 35 years of involvement in the Sons of the Desert!
Part of that afternoon included Lois being interviewed by our local L&H TV host, John Gallos. Questions were welcomed from the audience, and I remember someone asked what Stan’s favorite meal was. Lois responded “Liver and onions WITH BACON.” Of course, when we all dined later, I covertly ordered liver and onions WITH BACON.
With the out-of-towners on their way home by Monday, we were able to give Lois and Tony a cooks tour of some local sites. Tony was a magic buff, so a visit to Twin Cities Magic and Costume was a must. This is a magic store like no other and serves the whole country with magic supplies. Tony was in seventh heaven!
By an odd coincidence, the renown Walker Art Center in Minneapolis was screening a special program on Monday evening. It was featuring two films on the Library of Congress’ important films list: DOCTOR STRANGELOVE and BIG BUSINESS. I called the Walker and inquired if they would have any interest in having Stan Laurel’s daughter say a few words before the screening. They replied with an enthusiastic “Yes!” and told us to “be here by 7:30.” Complications and traffic found us arriving mere moments before the appointed time! I dropped everyone off at the stage entrance and Lois was wisked away to meet the evening’s emcee while I parked the car. Racing in I discovered that the MC was none other than Michael Rabe! Tony, Merrie and I left Lois in his capable hands and went off to find a seat (once again in the back row, this time in a “stadium-seating” type auditorium in an ere before stadium seating!).
Rabe made opening remarks to the crowd, then introduced the evening’s surprise guest, Lois. She was welcomed with warm applause. Rabe conducted a nice interview, took a few questions from the audience. She was stuck for an answer on one question, so plaintively called out “Tony-y-y” and an English-accented voice replied from the darkness with the answer. Another question left her stumped, and a cry to Tony didn’t help, but I’m tickled to tell you that I was able to give the correct response from our seats at the back of the room. At that point, host Rabe thought it wise to tell the audience that the disembodied voices wafting from the cheap seats was Lois’ husband and the president of the local L&H club!
With the interview over, the program began and Lois was ushered to her seat beside us. A beautiful 35mm print of BIG BUSINESS was met with little response…initially. After all, the “artsy” crowd was there to see the feature attraction, DOCTOR STRANGELOVE, and not low comedy. HOWEVER, soon there were titters in the audience. Then snickers. Then chuckles. And before long, outright guffaws! By the time Fin lit his cigar at the end of BIG BUSINESS, the crowd was in hysterics! And, again, there I was sitting right next to Stan Laurel’s daughter! Having that experience was unforgetable!
We snuck out of “How I learned to love the bomb” knowing that all the fun would have to come to an end the next morning as Lois and Tony would be heading back to the warmth of Southern California. We said our farewells on Tuesday morning at the airline gate (remember when you could stay with your loved ones until they actually boarded the plane?). With the extended weekend over, it was time to get back to the usual business, but that magical time will live on for me…and hopefully for the many others who had an opportunity to share in it…for years and years to come!
Tracy Tolzmann
May 3rd, 2008