A Great Weekend

Last week was an enjoyable one, I must say. The beginning started out slowly, but the weekend was VERY busy. On Friday, our friends, Bonnie Nelson and Rosemary Oblock brought lunch over and stayed to eat it with us. Was it ever good! They brought four HUGE salads from Costco and Bonnie made a wonderful lemon pie. It was all soooo good but of course I ate too much. Believe it or not, we ate the last of the salad tonight! I can tell you that we didn't eat much dinner Friday night.

Saturday night we went to Tony Roma's with our friends, Dick and Lee Child to celebrate my Dick's birthday. Actually, Dick's birthday in July 29, but Saturday night was the first time we could get together. It is a tradition from way back to celebrate the guys' birthdays together. We always go to Tony Roma's for baby back ribs. They are just so good. They stopped at our house after for dessert and we finished off the last of the lemon pie.

Sunday was a very special day too. We spent the afternoon at the Pikes house with Jim and Sue. I mentioned sometime ago that we had a celebrity that moved into our ward. His name is Jim Pike and he was the guy that started the well known singing group "The Lettermen" way back when.

I always loved the Lettermen. I actually loved the fifties when so many men's groups became popular. I had personal experience with the Four Preps as the baritone in that group, Glen Larson was in our ward when my first husband and I lived in Westwood Ward. He and Bruce Belland, another of the Preps used to come over to our house when we lived on LaCienega Blvd to play badminton in our back yard badminton court.

I didn't know until Sunday that Jim once sang and performed with the Four Preps too. When Jim's voice went away after singing with the Lettermen for so long during their really successful years, he had to quit singing for ten years. It then returned and he spent a few years with the Four Preps. This was after Glen had left the group.

It's amazing how many people we both know. He moved into Wilshire Ward a few years after we left and knew so many of the same people there. One of the ones we both knew was Janie Tompson, who wrote and directed many musicals that were presented in Wilshire Ward. This was before she joined the faculty at Brigham Young University. I was in some of those musicals, and so was Jim.

It was such fun to reminisce about those great old days. Jim is now very active in a new group he formed. They call it "Reunion". The other guys in the group are his brother, Gary Pike and Ric de Azevido. They are really good too!! I have three of their cds. They gave me another one with just Jim doing solos that he did when he was with The Lettermen. Boy, is it ever good!! He sounds a lot like Sinatra, and his sweet wife Sue kids him about that.

I really like Sue too. She is a counselor in our Relief Society. She used to be a R,S.teacher and she was a great teacher too!! Altogether, they are a wonderful addition to our ward. Jim used to be a counselor in our High Priest Group but they just recently reorganized it as our former Leader moved away. We still don't have a replacement as the man they called to that position bought a house in another ward. I swear our ward is getting smaller and smaller.

We didn't even get home until after 5:00. Time really goes by fast when you are having fun. They left the next morning for Big Bear and won't be back for a couple of weeks, and then we will be on our way, so we won't see them until we get back, which will be in October, but as soon as we do, we are going to get together with them again. We have so much in common that I think we will become good social friends. Dick and Jim are the same age and I am nine years older than Dick and Sue is nine years younger than Jim.

Dick is at his bishopric meeting at the church and I would really like to post a few pictures of Jim with his groups but of course, I probably will get it all messed up. I'm just hoping I can get them onto this blog at all. We'll see.

An album The Lettermen made after they had been around for a little while.

This is one The Lettermen made when they were still a pretty new group

This is a picture I had Dick take off the very first album The Lettermen made with Capitol Records. Jim is the handsome one on the left.

This is a picture of the three of them, Jim, Gary and Ric on their Reunion CD. Jim is the one with the white hair.....he looks like this now.