We all finished things off with a final meet-and-greet. Ralph came around with his reunion program and reversed things. Instead, he asked all the fans to give him signatures.
I got to meet Ralph's older brother Clive, who retold, what I would consider, the most humourous tale of the day. According to Clive, Ralph had just began his stint on the Forest Rangers in the 1960's and things were going so well for him that he was bragging about the success of the show with pride. Ralph was unrelenting in telling Clive about the popularity of the show. At this point in time Clive was living in England. So it happened that Ralph was over visiting his brother in the UK and Clive told him that now that he was in England, the home of Shakespeare and the great theatrical tradition, he had better stop bringing up the Forest Rangers. Well, the two of them got off the public transportation in London and a girl started screaming "Oh my God, It's Chub!" Clive still laughs at this story to this day- and for good reason.
Well now, I had worried all week- and all spring for that matter- about this one day event. But why should I have worried, I thought to myself? Thus far, everything had fallen into place as if it was meant to be, and even the weather on the day was holding up. The sun was shining brighter as the day progressed. I was really feeling that all the hard work had paid off when the final photo shoot took place. The six junior rangers stood beside the big spruce tree and the two signs.
Then Eric Wrate (one of the editors from the show) handed me a copy of an old photo which showed the entire ASP Production crew in a shot from the internal fort set. Susan was walking by and I showed her the photo (which had about forty people in it). With one quick glance she had singled out one crew member named Kurt Sheigl. He was also an actor who appeared in quite a few of the episodes. Susan then proceeded to tell another intriguing story of one episode that she was in with him called "Surprise Party". "See my finger," she showed us her injured finger, "when i was in the scene where Kurt is chasing us around the table trying to get the gun, he hit a chair which went down on my finger. It caused me great pain but I couldn't show that I was hurting until after the scene was shot. If you watch that episode carefully you can see when the chair goes over and for a flash you can see when it hits my hand." ( I did check that scene when I got home and put my VCR on slow mode, and sure enough the chair hits her hand. But her pain was well concealed by her expression.)
Slowly-but-surely everyone headed off to their cars with a big smile on their face. What a day it had been! But before all the guests were on their way home I had the final honour of giving Syme and Susan a big mukwa hug good-bye.
This day was certainly one of the top high lites of my life.
XNY 556 "A" for "Apple", "B" for "Bob", and "C" for "Charlie": over and out!!
