ROAD TO TOLUCA LAKE

At age 30, I left the harsh Minnesota winters for the land of fruits and nuts. I soon found a job as a senior systems analyst for a large computer complex near downtown Los Angeles and rented a house on stilts in the Hollywood Hills, overlooking Universal Studios in the San Fernando Valley. Six months later, I found a better job at a small computer software company next door to Warner Brothers studios. My office was officially in Los Angeles and the movie studio was officially in Burbank, both bordering the tiny community called Toluca Lake -- a small, quaint area within the Los Angeles metropolis. Soon I begin looking for a house to purchase. One day I spotted an ad about a fixer with a pool, within my price range, that was “less than 20 blocks from Bob Hope.” I didn’t know it at the time but the real estate agents in the area used Bob Hope as a point of reference – the closer to Bob Hope’s house, the more exclusive the property. In real estate, location is everything. Apparently, this particular real estate agent had a sense of humor. I bought the house. The pool was basically a swamp and cost several thousand dollars to get back into shape. Every day I drove to work, I passed by Bob Hope’s estate which was a couple of acres surrounded by high walls. I was told he had his own golf hole in the backyard – about a nine-iron shot. Not long thereafter, I married. We sold the house and bought a yacht. We lived on the yacht for six months, then sold it and bought a condo in Sherman Oaks. Next we sold the condo and rented an A-frame in Topanga. Then it was time to buy another house. This time, we found one in an area real estate agents refer to as Toluca Woods, south of Cahuenga Boulevard and north of Riverside Drive, "within 10 blocks of Bob Hope." It was a nice area. William Holden once owned the house at the end of the block. My wife and I often dined at the local hangouts where we would bump into some of the more famous Toluca Lake residents such as Jonathon Winters and Andy Griffith. The fellow I worked for was a member of Lakeside Country Club in Toluca Lake, Bob Hope’s home course. I played a few rounds of golf and occasionally lunched there. Then we divorced. My wife, bless her heart, kept the Toluca Woods house and I moved back into the Hollywood Hills. Oddly enough, I rented a place on the very same street, a little further uphill, as the house on stilts I had rented when I first moved to Los Angeles. Back to square one once again. Anyway, that’s my Bob Hope story. I never met him, or even saw him, yet he seemed to have an impact on my life. Leslie Towne Hope was born in Eltham, England on May 29, 1903. His father was an English stonemason and his mother an aspiring Welch concert singer. In 1907, Leslie’s father moved the family to Cleveland, Ohio. By way of his father’s naturalization, Leslie became known as “Bob.” In 1920, Bob and his brothers became U.S. citizens. During the 1940s and 1950s, Bob Hope was a star of radio, television and the films. He and crooner Bing Crosby were featured in several “Road” pictures and carried on a famous comic feud. Hope was also a frequent host of the Academy Awards ceremonies in Hollywood. Although he never won an Oscar for a film performance, he received five honorary Academy Awards for his contributions to the motion picture industry. Bob Hope will always be remembered for his tireless service to our military troops. He spent much of World War II traveling the globe to entertain Allied Forces. He continued this practice during later conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East and elsewhere, well into the 1990s. Bob Hope traveled off on the Road to the Great Beyond on July 27, 2003, at age 100. When his grandson asked him at his deathbed where he wanted to be buried, he remarked, "Surprise me." Thanks for the memories. ___________ Quote for the Day -- "I love to go to Washington -- if only to be near my money." Bob Hope ___________ Bret Burquest is the author of 12 books. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a few dogs and an imaginary girlfriend named Tequila Mockingbird. ___________ - -

Beyond Earth

Planet Earth is orbiting the sun at 67,000 miles per hour -- it is also rotating on its axis (spinning) at 1,000 miles per hour at the equator. Our solar system (the sun and its 9 planets) is travelling through space at 515,000 miles per hour. Our sun is a single star within a galaxy of stars, called the Milky Way. Our Milky Way galaxy, home of our solar system, is 100,000 light years across -- it would take about 230,000,000 (230 million) years at the speed of light to travel all the way around the outside perimeter of the Milky Way galaxy. There are about 300,000,000,000 (300 billion) stars within the Milky Way galaxy alone, a modest-sized galaxy compared to most other galaxies in the known universe. Our known universe contains some 100,000,000,000 (100 billion) galaxies, with each galaxy potentially containing multiple billions of stars. On a clear night, the average person is able to view approximately 3,000 stars with the naked eye. On July 22, 2003, CNN News reported that astronomers announced there are 70 sextillion stars in the visible universe. A sextillion is a 1 followed by 21 zeroes -- that's 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 known stars in the universe, more than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the entire Earth. This is not the total number of stars in the universe -- it's the number within the range of present day telescopes. The true number could be a zillion times higher. Our single star (the sun) contains 9 planets -- imagine how many potential planets are contained within 70, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000 known stars (other suns). Keep that in mind the next time you complain about finding a convenient parking spot. Also, keep that in mind if you assume that Planet Earth is the only spinning orb in the universe that contains intelligent entities, such as human beings, whose intelligence is often highly questionable. ___________ Quote for the Day – “Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.” Albert Einstein ___________ Bret Burquest is the author of 12 books. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a few dogs and where the universe is a fairly large place. ___________ - -