 | Mr. Kipper
English 8-2
30 August, 1998
Honey, Smile if You Love Me
Focus on the Family’s radio show for kids, Adventures in Odyssey, was wildly popular among our crowd. We loved it, man, and listened to it every night. Narrated by an extremely happy woman named Chris and centered around a guy named John Whittaker who ran an ice cream shop called Whit’s End in the small town of Odyssey, it always taught us a groovy lesson about the Bible or sommat like that. When Adventures in Odyssey announced that they were holding a sweepstakes, we entered right away. The grand prize was a trip to the Focus on the Family headquarters in Colorado Springs, a cameo on the show, a hot air balloon ride, and lots more. Of course, my sister AnJa and I weren’t aiming that high. We were really only hoping for the Doodle Art poster you got just for entering, and at the very most the local prize, two boxes of Adventures in Odyssey episodes on tape.
On the night they announced the regional winners, we nearly fell out of our chairs when the local guy read AnJa’s name as one of them! Giddily happy, we rode down to the radio station to pick up her prize. Bubbly inside that we’d won something, we listened to our new episodes nonstop, hardly remembering that the nationwide winner would be announced the next week. Of course, we remembered soon enough and found ourselves glued to the radio on that fateful night.
“Hi, this is Chris, and welcome to Adventures in Odyssey!”
Announce it, lady, I thought in a hostile manner.
“The grand prize winner is Angela Rivera!”
I blinked. AnJa really did fall out of her chair that time.
* * *
First she had a photo shoot at the Toy Junction, then she got yet another box of episode tapes. Soon after, we met the local station manager, Bob Mr. Kipper, and his two daughters Amy and Katy. Katy was my age and Amy was a year older than AnJa. Because they owned the station AnJa had won off of, they got to go too. It was super happy.
We took the groovy airplane to Colorado Springs-- it was the first time I’d ever been on a plane that I could remember, and I had lots of fun. The hotel we stayed at was a dream, too: Antler’s Doubletree Inn. It featured an entire health club and spa on the top floor and a swingin’ gift shop.
The first night we arrived, we had supper at a restaurant that I can’t remember the name of right now. Katy and I hit it off, and we were playing a freaky game, the rules of which I shall describe for you. In this game, one person would be the “husband” and the other would be the “wife.” The wife would say to her husband, “Honey, smile if you love me.”
The husband would then respond, “Honey, I love you, but I just can’t smile.” If the husband was able to complete this part without smiling, he won or something, but I don’t remember whether winning meant you switched roles or kept the same role. It must have been pretty arbitrary.
The day after that, we went fishing with mum’s sister and brother-in-law, Izzy and Doug, who lived in Colorado Springs. The Mr. Kippers went to see Seven Falls.
On the day that AnJa went in to record her cameo, we drove down to the station and took the elevator up to the floor where the show was done. AnJa got to read her part along with the actresses who portrayed Connie and Robyn on the show. I remember the actress who played Robyn had her leg in a cast, and AnJa read her part in a really cute voice. We still have this on tape. All together now-- Awwwwwwww!
During our stay at the radio station, everybody was sitting in the lounge just sort of doing nothing. AnJa and Amy had gone down to get Bob (Lavine) a soda, and when they brought it back it exploded. Why this stands out so clearly in my memory I don’t know, but it does.
Another of our super happy activities was riding the cog-rail up to the top of Pike’s Peak. Once there, we threw snowballs at each other and got hot chocolate in the gift shop. I also got a bag of neato rock candy.
We went to the hot air balloon show so AnJa could ride the hot air balloon-- I wanted to go, too, but I was only seven years old and also much too short to see over the top of the basket, so there really was no point in me going. Dad, AnJa, and the pro balloonist took a nice happy ride in the Still Hilarious (don’t ask me) while Mum and I chased after it in the back of a pickup truck.
Before they went up, we got to see lots of the other balloons. The ones I remember were a Klondike polar bear, a green dinosaur, and a can of 7-Up. At one point, the dinosaur fell over and appeared to be trying to eat the Klondike bear. Good times, good times.
And before we finished, AnJa had unwittingly accumulated about six Doodle Art posters, which was really all she’d hoped to get in the first place. Super happy, no?
|
 |
