Today I got to meet one of my all time favourite people, Jerry Mathers. As a youngster in the early 1960's I watched Leave It To Beaver each week. It was always a dream to meet the Beav and today it happened.

He was very polite and thanked me for my kind words. We shook hands and as there was a lot more people in line to meet him that was it. It would have been nice to chat longer but something is so much better than nothing.

The day started in our hotel room in Festus, we had a nice breakfast and headed out around 9:20am. On the way to De Soto we called into a quilt shop, Cobblestone Quilts.

Then onto De Soto, which is just a small town, populaton around 6000. Very pleasnat place where all the people are friendly and say hello. 

On May 4, 2003 around 3:45pm, a tornado outbreak broke in Kansas, Missouri & Tennessee. At 5:14pm, a tornado touched-down 2 miles northwest of De Soto. 14 minutes later, the tornado hit De Soto as an EF-3, causing $12,800,000 in damage. The tornado destroyed the Middle School, High School, 58 Houses & a local Grocery Store. It injured 23 and killed 9 inside De Soto.

We drove around a bit and checked out a Wal-Mart. The Jerry Mathers event was a Leave It To Beaver marathon, 3 epiosdes that featured Frank Wilcox. The event was held in the Melba Theatre, a historic old place. Just like the old movie places us oldies use to go to.

Jerry was introduced before the event, he said a few words and then went into the foyer area to sign autographs and pose for photos. We watched all three shows and then lined up for the autograph. Took us a while but we got there. I gave Jerry a big G'day and told him I had come all the way from Australia to see him. He said he got that from the 'G'day". I told him that he was an important part of my youth and he was very gracious. He posed for some photos, I wanted one from the iPhone so I could send it out straight away and then 2 from the camera so I had better quality. Then the photographer from the local paper asked Rayls to join in and she took a couple of photos as well. I did ask Jerry if he had even been to Australia and he said he had not. It was all over in a minute, I would have liked to have taken more time but there were people waiting in line so off we went.

We chatted with the locals, the people who run the theatre were very nice. They love their work keeping this old theatre going - it must be tough but they love their work. Jim Thomas was the festival organiser and very helpful in getting us there. Everybody was so nice and we came away very much in love with De Soto and its wonderful people. Hopefully we will get there again some day.

The good thing about going to quilt shops and festivals such as the one in De Soto is that it takes you to places that tourists that normally go to - we meet interesting people and see some great things.

We mulled over what to do next, it was 4pm and we considered staying in De Soto for a bit - Eileen invited us back to West Alton for the night, that was tempting but then we would have to go through the sad goodbyes all over again. We decided to start back to Chicago. We have a very early flight on Monday morning so best to get started in daylight.

We made it back to Springfield in Illinois and have spent the night at the Route 66 Hotel. Lots of Route 66 memorabilia but a very average hotel.

Firstly a big thank you to Eileen. A good friend, one of the few people I am comfortable enough to open up with. That is a big compliment Eileen.

We left West Alton at 10am and had three quilt shops to visit on the 100K drive to Festus! We got to two, the other we will do on Saturday. Rayls also managed a Thrift Shop, not sure why you would want to visit one of those, and a Hobby Lobby which she enjoyed. 

In the meantime I went to a sports store, no cricket gear. In fact when I jokingly asked the server for where the cricket gear was she said "we don't have any cricket stuff but we do have pickle ball items". OK, I guess I see the similarity between the two sports, they have a ball! I also went to a Shake and Steak, which was a bust!

Our plan is to get to De Soto for the Frank Wilcox Film Festival and in particular the special guest Jerry Mathers. De Soto is not a big town so we stayed the night in a Comfort Inn in the nearby town of Festus.

Frank Wilcox (March 13, 1907 – March 3, 1974) was an American character actor who made appearances in more than 150 films and nearly 200 episodes of television programs. He was born in De Soto and each year the town honours him with a film festival.

When I did the research for this film festival I saw there was a movie on the Friday night which had Frank Wilcox in it. The movie was They Died With Their Boots On. The movie was made in 1941 and stars Aussie Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. The movie is 73 years old and amazingly de Havilland is still with us, she is 97. The info I had was that Jerry Mathers would introduce the show but alas he did not. So we have to wait till tomorrow to meet the Beav!

The movie was shown in a church hall, Rayls guessed there would be 100 there, I thought 80 and it turned out there was 30. However, it was a good night, the movie was about George Armstong Custer and there was some funny bits in it, I am not sure they were suppose to be funny but it made for an enjoyable movie. The movie was introduced by Elizabeth von Gremp who is a daughter of Frank Wilcox. She is quite an old lady, 7 years younger than me!

After the movie we were interviewed by Kevin Carberry of the local newspaper, Leader. I guess they don't get too many Aussies coming to De Soto.

It was another good day, tomorrow (Saturday) I hope to meet the Beav!

Today was a pleasant enough day with Eileen in the St Louis area.

We planned out 4 quilt shops we could visit and got to all 4. Sadly 2 were no longer open so Rayls and Eileen got to just 2 shops and they seemed to enjoy them.

For lunch we went to one of Eileen’s favourite places, Hendel’s Market Café. It’s a lovely old place with much history.  The building was originally built in 1873 as a general store and in more recent years has been developed into a restaurant.

After lunch we returned to the house where I was left to do some computer work whilst the ladies went off to a flea market.

We had another nice dinner and chatted. Rayls managed a much needed load of washing.

Tomorrow we move on, we never stay long with Eileen, which is a pity as she is a lovely person and the perfect host.

Ryan seems to be having a good time in Chicago.

Nice breakfast at the hotel to start the day and then along I55 to Rochester, which is just out of Springfield, the Illinois State Capital.

In Rochester Rayls visited her first quilt shop for the trip, Peace and Applique – she seemed to enjoy it.

Then it was on to downtown Springfield where we visited the Abraham Lincoln Museum. It is a fascinating place, very interesting with some very informative guides along the way.

Across the road they had a display of props used for the movie Lincoln.

We managed one more Quilt Shop, Sew Unique before at aroun 3pm we started out on I55 further south towards St Louis and our friends house in West Alton.

It was cold and windy all the way down from Bloomington, a very dreary day. The drive was through very rural areas, lots of freshly ploughed fields..

Our friend Eileen was waiting for us in her West Alton home. Hubby Phil is away on a golfing week with some friends.

Eileen lives on a lovely rural property just a half hour or so out of St Louis. She and Phil are great people we met through their daughter Nicole when she was a student in Perth back in 2002..

We had a lovely roast dinner and a chat. Alas I went to bed early, not much later than 7:30pm. Just so tired.

Ryan spent the day wandering the streets of Chicago before going to the Blackhawks game at the United Center