"It Is Long Hours Of Work, But It's A Labor Of Love."

ITJ 30^th Anniversary

by Roger L. Gordon

An address at the 14^th Convention in Columbus, Ohio

It is hard to believe that 30 years have passed since the founding of the Intra-Tent Journal. So much has happened in the world, the nation and the Sons of the Desert. To give you some perspective, in 1974 the Vietnam War had been over for less than a year. The Watergate Scandal had just concluded. President Gerald Ford promised new prosperity.

And what of the Sons of the Desert? There were exactly 25 tents. Tye Morrow headed the New York Sons, Lori Jones led the Los Angeles group. And there were other names such as Norman Kay with the Boston Brats, Dick Bann in the Twin Cities, Hal Stanton in the Connecticut Valley, Al Marr in Toronto, Richard Duino in Cleveland, Evan Robinson in Daytona Beach, Chuck Huck in Chicago and Paul Toepp in Detroit. Coming in the future were tents in England and the rest of Europe and tents in other cities in the United States and Canada.

Who could have dreamed at that time that the 25 existing tents would grow into almost 125 around the world three decades later. Yet in 1974 there was little communication between tents. Lori Jones had never met Marsha Opal. Henry Sorenson had never met Savannah and Bill Furman. Maybe Bill had not even met Savannah. Bob Satterfield was just a youngster in shorts pants and Dwain Smith even had hair. Leonard Maltin was running a Junior Tent in Teaneck, New Jersey. He wasn’t old enough to join the New York group. Stan had only been gone for nine years.

Think of where you were 30 years ago. Jack McCabe and a group of film buffs, entertainers and cartoonists had met nine years earlier at the Tudor Pub in New York city for some fun times, to lift a few brews and to watch Laurel and Hardy films. No one had any idea that the Sons of the Desert would grow inter-nationally throughout the United States, Canada and the world. Yet communication between tents was lacking and that’s why the Intra-Tent Journal was created. Its objectives were to unify the Sons, to increase communication and to impress in everyone’s mind that a convention, a real convention just like in the film, Sons of the Desert, could actually take place. Four years later that Convention became a reality in Chicago in 1978. Savannah Furman’s fine book on the Sons conventions will give you more details.

 I started the ITJ with Jack McCabe’s help. In those days home computers were at least a decade in the future. The first ITJ’s and those for the next seven years were done on a typewriter and pasted upon cardboard. Headlines were constructed with transfer letters. There was a lot of clip art in those ITJ’s which were taken from any available source. I remember Jack sent some valuable pictures of Stan and Babe from his personal collection and that helped a lot. We printed about two hundred copies of each issue in those days.

Today we print over 2,100 copies and they are distributed throughout the world. But the tents supported the ITJ and somehow we made it. The ITJ worked hard to drum up public opinion for the first Convention in Chicago. What a thrill it was to finally see Anita Garvin and Red Stanley for the first time walking down the hall at the Sheraton O’Hare Inn in 1978. And to meet Lois Laurel, Rosina Lawrence, Darla Hood, and others was more than most Sons could have imagined.

In subsequent years we were to know Henry Brandon, Felix Knight, Virginia Karns, Marvin Hatley and many of those great Our Gang kids all grown up. Even Al Kilgore who wouldn’t fly in an airplane, drove all the way from New York to Chicago for the first Convention. There were some people who said the convention wouldn’t make it. We did everything we could through the ITJ to build attendance even using that famous para-phrase “All Roads Lead to Chicago.” The Convention made it and has ever since.

In 1980, after six years, we passed the editor’s duties to Alan Garfield of the Chicago Bacon Grabbers tent. Alan changed the appearance of the ITJ from that of a newspaper to a magazine and it has been that way ever since. Two years later Alan teamed with Rick Greene of the San Diego Saps At Sea Tent. After 1984, Rick became the sole editor of the ITJ and continued until 1990.

Every editor made major contributions and these issues have become collector’s items. Scott MacGillivray took over later in 1990 and issued his brand of top quality ITJs into 1993. Randy Skredvedt of the Orange County, California tent served as editor for three issues during this period. In 1994 Tracy Tolzmann of the Twin City Blockheads tent teamed with Alison Grimmer of England. By this time many UK and other European tents had emerged. These groups added much to the Sons of the Desert. And at that time Tracy’s wife Merrie, Mark Turner of the Columbus host tent and Eric Woods from the UK also handled much of the business and mailing duties of the publication. I would also like to recognize Henry Sorenson who does a fantastic job on the index of the Intra-Tent Journal. The index makes it possible for scholars and all of us to locate highlights of the publication that have taken place over the 30 years of its existence.

In the late 90’s the Editorial duties passed from Tracy to Dave Stevenson of New England’s On The Loose tent . He joined with co-editor Alison Grimmer. They not only became editors but they united permanently by getting married. For the past six years Dave and Alison have been an outstanding editorial team. And they were joined by Del Kempster of the U K at the Nashville Convention in 2002 to form an even stronger ITJ editorial team. Not long after Dave and Alison took over as editors, I returned to the team taking over the business manager duties of the ITJ. I have also been joined by Bob Rooney and my wife Sharon from the Two Tars Tent of the Delaware Valley.

The ITJ is solvent with your support and with further help from the Utopia tent, a group of wonderful Sons who are spread throughout the world. So here we are, celebrating 30 years of the publication. It is long hours of work, but it’s a labor of love.

Thank you for supporting us.

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