GOLDEN POND

Past lives? I can recall a few! 1) Don't remember much after we hit the huge mountain of ice. Mass pandemonium. I tried to assure the passengers that the tub is unsinkable. Boy, was I wrong. Maiden voyage beginning in Liverpool. I do recall Molly Brown getting into the lifeboat. Btw, I was in the Crow's Nest when I spotted the huge iceberg!. Unfortunately, I ended up in Davy Jones Locker. 2) I was a private in the Army stationed at Fort Sumter. Circa 1861. We had to vamoos with a quickness when the Rebs opened fire. Johnny Yuma led the charge! 3) "Damn, it's high up here." Yep. No OSHA to protect us construction workers as we dangled from the steel beams. It was the Empire State Building! Tallest building in the world at the time. 4) I met Jim Bowie outside of Wichita. We ate our grub and drank coffee by the campfire. Loved that knife of his. He was headed to the Alamo and I was following Horace Greeley's advice- Go West Young Man. Ward Bond was head of our wagon train. I settled down in Los Angeles. Had me a spread. And had to contend with Zorro. Little did I know Don Diego was "the fox," so cunning and free! And made the mark of a "Z." 5) Has anyone seen the movies Fantasia, Dumbo or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? Yep! I drew them. Animators we were. Me and Walt Disney himself. "Mickey Mouse needs to be the star of Fantasia," I told Walt and laughed when he said it should star Donald Duck! We always had a good chuckle when we revisited memory lane. After he built Disneyland, he never mentioned it again! 6) I was an assistant to Percy Spencer at Raytheon during World War II. We were developing microwave radar transmitters. One eventful day and one I'll never forget, I was taking time out for lunch. Percy kept working and suddenly my Three Musketeers candy bar was cooking in my pants. Ouch! Third-degree burns it was. We both shouted eureka at the same time. Percy still owes me a nickel.lol. And for the grafting. 7) I was a soda jerk and worked at the Top Hat Malt Shop in Hollywood. 1936. I could make a mean chocolate milkshake, lime sours, and my banana splits were to die for. I'll never forget the day Lana Turner ordered a Cherry Coke. She was 16 and had a certain flair. After a long chit-chat, I called Mervyn Leroy, who quickly signed her to a movie contract. 8) I called him Stan the Man. He called me Oz. We met in Vegas when it was run by the mob. I had an arachnid farm- call me weird, I know. Made a good living. I knew Stan wrote comics and was eager to develop a new character. I could see the light bulb go off in his head as I was telling him the genealogy of spiders. Who would have thunk it? 9) "The Chairman of the Board," "the Voice," "Swoonatra"- these were Frank's nicknames. But he wanted another one. One night at the Copa where I was a bouncer, I mentioned to Lucky Luciano that Frank had blue eyes. He had aged gracefully and then a revelation hit me. Why not "old blue eyes?" It stuck! Whenever OBE came to the Copa to see Desi Arnaz sing "Babalu," I marveled with pride! Mr. Sinatra always called me Jack the Whack, a name that stuck with me forever! 10) Yep. Politics was my game! Barry was getting pummeled in the polls and the American public was deathly afraid of him. A vote for Barry would certainly result in World War 3. He was running against an incumbent and had no chance of winning. I didn't know Barry, but I did introduce Jack to Norma Jeane Mortensen. You might know her better as Marilyn Monroe! Years later, I suggested she sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President," as she wanted to sing "she'll be coming around the mountain when she comes." She later thanked me and so did Jack! Past lives? Reincarnation? Yep! Maybe it was a dream (s)?