Time for confession, I guess. My first paid gig singing the songs I'd been singing for years for free was at the old Park Lane Hotel in Toledo. Mitch Woodbury, Entertainment editor of the Toledo Blade, circa 1954, after hearing me singing at a private party for the Mad Anthony Players (a summer stock company of which I was a very small part), told me he'd get me some gigs if ever I wanted some. I came hitch-hiking back into Toledo a bit later, dead broke and a little hungry. I called Mitch, determined never to wash another dish in a roadside hash-house, and he booked me into the Park Lane. I sang there for six months. The discovery that people would actually pay me for doing what I had long been doing for fun ruined me completely. I've only had an honest job for about one (tedious) year since then.

But, dammit, there wasn't even a decent used-book store in Toledo back in those dark ages.

Sandy