-------------- Extra-Amazing Super Item Day! (Monday, 25oct99) Part One (See also Part Two) If you're much given to following These H'yar Items of the Week, you already know Jean H. (of Box o' Items and We Can Play With Its Echo fame). For those of you who are new in these h'yar parts [now dropping dialect, no, thank you], Jean regularly submits BOXES full of the most amazing items -- fully annotated -- along with scrapbooks she assembles and sends in the guise of recruitment "brochures" for Petaluma, California's "Butter and Egg Days," during which unsuspecting festival visitors are shanghied into serving the dairy needs of the nation. (Don't fret if you're confused; even after it is all documented here on Deuce of Clubs one day, you'll still be just as confused. Just roll with it.) Anyway, Jean read on the Gimme Page of my desire for items related to the Tex Ritter film Rainbow Over the Range, in which my old man, uncle & gramps all appeared. Going WAY beyond all expectation of duty, Jean managed to obtain four of the five known Rainbow Over the Range lobby cards. Unbelievable, no? She even made color copies of the cards, which I will give to my uncle. (As am I -- thank you, Jean!) (Watch for future Items of the Week that were also acquired on Extra-Amazing Super Item Day: Model Bottle, Duck Soap, and a mystery-solving OC Register article.)	Tex and the Rainbow Over the Range cowboys pose for a photo on location at Watson Lake, near Prescott, Arizona. Of the four lobby cards, this one is my favorite—because I wouldn't have expected to see Gramps on one of them. Gramps is the shady character on the right, in the black hat. The shadowy and mysterious guy who was my grandfather, trying to hide behind Tex Ritter's famous horse, White Flash. (Added 03jul2010:) Gramps's Wagnerian death scene. Apparently they had a slingshot expert on site who would shoot little pellets either filled with or made of baking soda. At the feet of the horses is a rock that makes many, many unintentionally hilarious appearances in the film. (The good guys and the bad guys chase one another through the shallow water numerous times throughout the film. But instead of doing a camera setup on both sides, the filmmakers simply show them going into the water at the spot where the rock is, and then cut to a shot of them emerging from the "other side" -- yet that same rock is always in the shot.) Jean also kindly included a nice 8x10 of Tex Ritter. Here's the explanation Jean sent along with the Items (which arrived in a stove box). No matter how technologically advanced we become, nothing can replace beef cows or plants. You can't do that with computers. You still need animals, plants and soil. Alert!! Gimme Page Item Found!! Much to my surprise someone had Rainbow Over the Range items. I contacted five people and one out of the five had these lobby cards. Out of curiosity I contacted more companies but to no avail. There four lobby cards were sent to me from Design Evolution. When I got the lobby cards there was a note saying he also thinks he has one more lobby card and definitely a poster. (I don't know why he didn't know if he had another lobby card when he sent me these four, but I did not question.) I called him and he is going to check on the lobby card and send it to me if he has it and he is going to send a picture of the poster which I will forward to you. The poster costs $875.00. If I was rich I would buy it for kicks. But I contacted my Financial Adviser (my checkbook) and he said this would be impossible at this time. I do not want to wait for the other lobby card if he has it. I want to send these four now because of two thoughts I had. A fire in my house because my oven sparks when I turn it on. I would be really pissed if these lobby cards went up in flames due to my get oven fixed procrastination. But I do not have to worry about that anymore because the oven got really mad at my neglect and went out in a final sparking circuit tripping little fit. Did the oven go out as I was heating it up for pizza? No it did not. It got the final revenge by deciding to no longer work as I was heating it up for a Beef Wellington dish I had worked five hours on. I called my neighbor to use their oven but they weren't home. I had to microwave the Beef Wellington and creamed spinach dish I also prepared. Was it edible -- yes. Was it barely edible -- yes. The next day my neighbor Dave came over to inspect the oven's injuries. He said they were too severe and the oven would never recover. So off to Sears we went. I got a shiny new black oven & yesterday Dave knocked out some cabinets to put in new oven. Today he will wire it and hopefully tonight I can use it. I need to do something nice for Dave especially after using a crappy old little saw I had, the blade broke and hit his face. I am so glad it did not hit his eye. It would be really bad news to have your neighbor blinded in one eye while installing your oven for free. Today he said he is bringing his own tools. After facial injury and dead battery on power drill I guess he doesnt trust my tool inventory. Then I thought I won't wait for news of another lobby card & get these out right away because what if I was in a fatal accident? What if some of my last words were to the paramedics in a Citizen Kane movie scene way "Rainbow, Rainbow, send out the Rainbow." Being distraught & forgetting about the cards & not understanding my words "Rainbow" (maybe thinking I saw a Rainbow instead of a white light) what if my husband had someone go through my stuff and that person would think "I wonder why she has these Rainbow cards" and take them away with the rest of my stuff. Now I am paranoid about them getting lost in the mail, although I have never had that happen and think the US postal system does a fine job especially after I see how some people spell Gilrix Street. I am so surprised that some stuff makes it to my house. Recently a friend sent us a postcard from India and he put the address on the postcard as Gilrick Road -- but it got here. I am going to make colored copies of these lobby cards in case they meet peril, at least there will be a copy. I have time to think these paranoid thoughts because this month I am celebrating "Injured Foot Month." My celebration started by hitting my right foot on a coffee table. I could not wear shoes because it was too painful so I wore my husband's big floppy ugly sandals. Not wanting to go but sick of the pain and floppy sandal accessory I went to a doctor after a couple of weeks of not getting better. The doctor sent me to the x-ray department and I got my foot x-rayed. The talkative, would be called a tough broad in the 1940's, x-ray technician said "well, don't tell em I told ya but ya broke it." I thought damn, but at least I knew. Then I took the x-ray to the doctor. The doctor looked at it in another room and came back to me and said "well, its not broken -- you have a contusion." I asked what that was & she said "bruised." I felt like I was in a combination Twilight Zone / Candid Camera episode. I wanted to say but the x-ray technician said it was broken but didn't want to get her in trouble. The doctor said there was nothing I could do for it but to let it heal & to expect it to take at least four weeks. She suggested buying the ugly Birkenstock Brand sandal. After another week the pain did not get better but I was sick of the floppy sandal so cut out the side of a old pair of tennis shoes. I don't drive because I suffer from "Not Paying Attention to the Road Attention Deficiency Disorder" and feel its best I don't get behind the wheel so I am used to walking everywhere. Unfortunately when you celebrate foot injury month it is hard to walk to the store or anywhere for that matter. When I do get a ride to the store it is funny to notice how people look at my half tennis shoe. Well then I hit my foot in the same spot on a recycle bin out in the garage. Scream caught in throat was a saying I thought of during that part of the celebration. Then I hit it in the same spot on a metal hose guide pipe outside. It took me awhile to make it back into the house after that hit. Wearing either my half tennis shoe or going barefoot -- on a barefoot day I stepped on a piece of glass that I guess I missed cleaning up after a glass lid fell on the kitchen floor and broke. However, I tried to make the best of the situation by making pretty designs with the blood on the floor. By this time I was wondering if I subconsciously hated my right foot -- why did I keep hurting it? But my right foot has always been good to me so I don't know what's going on. Then last Sunday I went to a pumpkin patch with my husband and friends Phil & Gale & their two kids. I hit my foot in the same spot on a wooden crate filled with mini gourds. Fortunately they had wheelbarrows for pumpkin gatherers and Phil wheeled me around the pumpkin patch until I could limp along again. Tonight my husband is driving me to the store for ugly Birkenstocks. It doesn't help that I keep hitting my foot but I am giving this celebration one more week before I go back to a doctor for second opinion. However, because of Foot Injury Month I am bored out of my mind and thus decided to find Rainbow Over the Range items. So thanks for giving me something to do. Adios. Sincerely, Jean Howery From Petaluma -- Egg Basket of the World
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