Regardless of what some others may be claiming, this was the first actual Judy Bolton Day weekend get-together in October 1991. Some of us had been there the year before searching out sites and laying the groundwork for future visits, but it was a different time of year and it wasn't an 'official' event. At this point, we were still representing the Phantom Friends, which is why the name is used in the article which appeared in several fanzines in 1992, including The Judy Bolton Society newsletter. Click on the images for reading!
This year's event, 2014, will be the 24th annual Judy Bolton Day weekend, not the 15th, as some are claiming.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteI agree that the first Judy weekend was in 1991. We were a small group of Phantom Friends and Judy fans who enjoyed getting to know each other and meeting the residents of Potter County who have now becomes our friends (the Kerns, Marge Green, the Rotellos, and Bob Merton who has left us). There were no agendas, just informal get togethers in someone's room or in the lobby of the old Westgate. Lorraine
We were there to celebrate the Judy Bolton books and find the sites used in the stories, and we all got along well and had the best of times. No ulterior motives or agendas. It was shocking in later years when we were accused by newcomers close to Margaret Sutton that we were 'in cahoots' with Mr. Rigas of Adelphia Communications in trying to exploit her. We were accused and insulted in front of everyone else there when we never did anything but good - promoting the Judys, donating over 200 Judy Bolton books to the local schools, and getting the first two and last two Judys back in print via Applewood books, which paved the way to get the whole series reprinted.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing that some of us continued to go every year after the way we were treated by people who didn't know us at all nor had any idea what we had actually done. Sadly, some never went back after that happened.
Mike
We had some great times in Coudersport (Farringdon) and Austin (Roulsville) when we started our Judy Bolton get-togethers in 1991 and throughout the 1990s.
ReplyDeleteI've been to many conventions, still go, but I remember thinking in 1991, my first trip to Judy Bolton Country, that it was so great that it wasn't a convention, just an informal group of a few really avid Judy Bolton fans getting together without a schedule and doing whatever came up. We had impromptu birthday parties and pizza and chicken dinners with the Kerns in the Odin (Dry Brook Hollow) House.
We would just mention something from one of the Judy Bolton books to Peg Rotello and she'd say, "I know where that is." And we'd be off and running to a new Judy site.
And not to forget the first time Bob Merten got down in the ditch to re-enact Mr. Brady from The Voice in the Suitcase. Later 'the man in the ditch' was done to death.
Although The Trail of the Green Doll is far from my favorite book, I was interested in seeing the Parker Tomb the first several times. But then I began wondering, how many of these people who go and stare at Parker's Tomb every year have ever read Green Doll?
We used to talk to the local people to see what information they could give us. We went to the old train station, the newspaper office, spent a rainy Saturday afternoon in the "Haunted Attic' house, spent another rainy day in Emporium where the radio factory was in The Haunted Road. We found the real North Hollow Road and one day Mike DeBaptiste found a 'half house' right in Coudersport!
Oh, those were the days!
Diana
And sometimes, the touching is used to participate in the text club and opt
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