ARCHONTIS PANTIOS' TRIP TO DON ROSA'S HOUSE!

Fellow Quackeroos:

I was planning the trip to Rosa since I arrived in the U.S. last January. Despite having met him at an event last April in Pennsylvania, I still very much wanted to make the trip to Louiville, Kentucky and visit him at his home there. In what follows, I'll try to describe this 4-day trip from my point of view, being well aware that I'll leave many details out since that 4-day period was chock-full of pictures and emotions. It'll take me 3 postings to complete this "report". I'd surely could have done a much better job at describing it had a brought a tape-recorder along or had I been taking notes; however, I did not make that trip as a reporter, but as a friend and an admirer of Don's work.

As it turned out, I wasn't to make the trip all by myself. I kept bugging my good friend from Sweden, Orjan Berglund, to visit me here in the U.S. and make the trip to Louisville together. Fortunately, at the last minute, Orjan decided to visit me for 11 days, May 25-June 4.

I picked up Orjan from the Binghamton Greyhound bus terminal in the afternoon of May 25. We spend Memorial Day weekend driving around the Finger Lakes region in upstate New York, in anticipation of the Rosa trip we had scheduled for May 30-June 2.

*DAY 1: Tuesday, May 30, 2000*---We woke up bright and early that morning (actually I was awake since 5:00 a.m. full of excitement and anticipation). The weather was summer-like, after having treated us with record-setting rainfalls during the month of May. During Orjan's 11-day stay, we only saw a few drops of rain! I was kidding him that he brought the sun along (when he left, it started raining again!). Earlier we had studied the map carefully and we had mapped out our route. From Binghamton we'd take route 17 and drive west, then take interstate 90 and cross into Pennsylvania first and then into Ohio. At Clevelend, we'd take interstate 71 that would take us all the way to Louisville. On the map the distance looked short!!!

We departed Binghamton at 8:00 a.m. and started our long drive to Louisville on my rented Toyota Camry 1990. The first leg of our trip until we reached Erie, Pennsylvania, was probably the most interesting in terms of scenery with lots of rolling hills. After we passed Cleveland, Ohio, we made a stop around 3:00 p.m. and had lunch at a fast food place. An interesting site in that joint was a group of Amish people (they had to be modern Amish, since they were using automobiles!).

After we got back on the road, we realized that we still had quite a bit of driving to do before reaching Louisville. We calculated the total distance to be ~700 miles, and we had just passed the mid-point! We tried to pep ourselves up thinking of all the things we'd see once at Rosa's place--plus we were not really in any big hurry, since we had planned to spend the night at a motel outside of Louisville. 300 miles later, and after driving thru the cities of Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio, we stopped for the night at a small town called Carrolton, ~40 miles from Louisville. After settling at our room at a Day's Inn, we went to a nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken, picked up dinner to go, and went back to our room to enjoy our chicken watching an NBA game between the L.A. Lakers and the Portland Trailblazers! We fell asleep knowing that the next day would be "THE DAY"!

My first posting on the "Rosa trip" had ended with "as evening shadows fell" at a Day's Inn in Carrollton, ~40 miles from Louisville, KY.

*DAY 2: Wednesday, May 31, 2000*: After a tiresome first day of near continuous driving, we woke up ~8:00 a.m. and went to have breakfast. Outside it was warm and muggy and the forecast for the next 2 days was for more of the same: humid and hot (~90 F!).

When we returned to our motel room we gave Don a call and told him of our exact location and that we'd be at his place in ~1 hour. A few days earlier Don had faxed me a "map to Rosa" (which I think is a "collector's item" in itself!). Using that map it was a piece of cake to find his place. After getting off interstate 71 and driving a few winding and curvey miles passing a "scenic ovelook", a little creek, a dude ranch, and the "famous" 'echo trail' (!), a right turn took us to Dawson Hill road! A "landmark" before reaching Don's house was "Ferg's Mower Repair", with Ferg looking exactly like Don had caricatured him on the map! (big, flappy ears!). One more creek, one more turn and...there it was! The gate was open and we drove in the long driveway to Don's house.

We parked in front of the house and got out. Shortly thereafter Don came out to greet us and offered us cool ginger-ale. He was wearing shorts and a "Rosa" t-shirt, from a Rosa-eatery in Italy. Before anything else he went afoot to close the gate so as to let his 3 basset houns roam free in his estate.

When he returned he introduced us first to his 3 basset hounds: Daisy, Chloe, and Suki. The first rule we learned in petting them was the following: we could pet Chloe and Suki at any time, but we could pet Daisy only in the absence of the other two! Failure to do so would jeopardize the well-being of Chloe and Suki in the claws of Daisy!

Initially we had a brief tour of the house (of wooden, rustic style) and its immediate surroundings. Don's estate comprises of ~10 hectares of land, with the house located approximately in the center of the property. There's a huge lawn northwest of the house with a small pond at its end. There's a meadow east of the house with a barn and garden. To the west, southwest, and northeast, there's forested area, with a field at the very southwestern part. After getting a first glimpse of that area I fully realized what Don had meant when writing of needing so much time to mow the lawn!

We were then introduced to Gyro, the Rosas' cockatoo! Gyro started screaming (boy, he can *really* scream!) once he realized there were visitors in the house, wanting to come out of his cage and be petted! However, Don didn't do that until later on.

After catching our breath and with a cool glass of ginger-ale in our hands, we visited the "Expo center" (a small barn where the old owner would store his car collection!). In the "Expo" Don currently keeps his own car "collection", i.e. his "famous" (I had first seen it in an old "Captain Kentucky" panel) 1948 Dodge that he still uses, albeit not that often, and a 1938 Nash Lafayette of which we only caught a glimpse. Don promised us he'd take us on a ride on his Dodge the next day!

We then proceeded to visit the garden which is right behind the barn. Don and his wife Ann (who was attending a teaching seminar all that week and would be back in the afternoon) raise all kinds of vegetables and Don showed us the green onions we'd later have at dinner! After tip-toeing thru the garden we walked along the meadow which was full of wild flowers Don had planted. Don would show us and name all the different types of wild flowers we'd meet. It was hot, Don was wearing a hat to avoid the horse-flies while Orjan and I braved the hot sun uncovered despite Don's offer to put something on. When we returned to the house we (and especially I) were sweating and were desparate in need of a cool place to sit down!

What was the coolest room in the house? Well,...., the famous "comics vault"! We descented down the stairs and got inside the room we had read about so many times in the past. It's a relatively small room, with wall-to-wall comic-book "carpeting"! Rows of metal shelfs were loaded with boxes full of old comic books, nicely arranged by type and labeled by year. The first thing we saw was his "TV Guide" collection. Don asked me if I wanted to check what was on American TV the night I was born. I said sure, and after uttering my birthdate (October 26, 1961), Don pulled out the relevant issue of "TV Guide" and we checked the TV listings!

Of course, we could have spend days in there, not mere hours! We asked to see some Dell Disneys (I asked for the first Uncle Scrooge issues and Orjan for the early WDC&S). I asked Don whether he'd be interested in ever selling his huge collection, and he replied that he'd do it only to someone who'd be interested in buying the entire set of a series; he wouldn't want to sell issues individually because of the time he has spent in completing a collection.

While we were there, we also asked to see his pre-Disney work which he keeps in a file of its own. Before we left the room we took a number of pictures holding various comics in our hands. (Hey, if you can't boast with proof to other people about things like these, what good is it? :-)))

It was afternoon already and after exiting the comics vault we thought that visiting Don's studio would be a nice "encore"! One enters Don's studio after passing thru the garage and climbing the stairs. Donald Duck paraphernalia catch your eye immediately! The room is chock-full of such Donald and Scrooge paraphernalia, ranging from small statuettes to larger busts. The glass showcases where most of the Donald collectibles are stored are literally bursting at the seams. There's a desk at the other end of the stairway and Don's drawing board at the left. A couch, a love-seat, and a giant T.V. screen complete the furniture. One also finds piles of international comics printing his stories and Don invited us to take as many as we pleased from his pile of second and third copies that he usually gives away to kids at conventions (we graciously obliged the next day!). In file cabinets he keeps copies of his initial and finished artwork of his stories.

We didn't know that we were up for a real treat (as though everything so far wasn't a treat!). On his desk there laid the just finished rough story-board pencil version of his *LATEST* story! A "Life of Scrooge" chapter he's doing for "PICSOU" magazine, set in Panama in the early 1900s where Scrooge encounters President Roosevelt again! Don said that he'd wanted us to read it during our visit and let him know of our impressions (the only thing I'll divulge at this point is that it's a really funny story, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the finalized version and how Don re-works some "contentious" sequences!).

We spent a couple of hours in Don's studio discussing many topics and listening to Don describing to us the entire process of developing a story, from initial idea, to final inked art. It felt really special living all this in the very "sanctum sanctorium" of Don Rosa's place. During that first day in his studio we also saw copies of tens of fan artwork pieces that Don has done in the past 10 years or so. Many of them I had seen for the first time and it was a real treat!

We had to catch our breath after all this and we felt we also needed a chance to unwind and process all the images of the last few hours. We went downstairs (in the meantime we had met Ann, Don's lovely wife who had returned from her seminar) and sat outside in the smaller deck waiting for the sun to start setting before moving to the larger deck in the western side of the house for dinner. Earlier, Don had asked us to choose what type of dinner we'd prefer having and we opted for good, ol' American steak! As we enjoyed our cold ale in a very hot afternoon we talked about many things, many of them actually not comics related. For example, Don would tell us of all the types of birds and animals that frequent his property, and we did some bird-watching. We even saw some humming-birds as Don's house is surrounded with humming-bird feeders.

We had grilled steak for dinner in the western deck as the sun was setting. Orjan admitted that this was the *fattest* steak he'd ever eaten and he also tried green onions for the *first* time picked fresh from the garden!

After dinner we had to do something to burn off what we had just eaten! It was dark already, so armed with flash-lights we embarked on a forest expedition! Don had told us that he has developed an elaborate system of pathways in his property's forested area, and we thought it'd be a good idea to "explore" some of them! We entered thru a path on the west and proceeded thru a daedalic system of paths to the field at the south-western part of his property until we finally returned to the driveway and back home. Along the path-ways, Don has placed benches and we stopped for brief rests during that "jungle exploration", always careful to avoid the *dreaded* poison ivy that Don has been fighting relentlessly to exterminate!

Upon our return we were treated with cheese-cake from Ann and after shooting the breeze for a few more minutes we decided it's time to call it a day! As I laid on the bed in the guest-room, holding on my hands Don's most recent story (I was probably the third person to read it!), I thought to myself that all in all that was a pretty memorable day! And just before I went asleep I dashed downstairs to hand over to Orjan's awaiting hands the first 12 pages of the "Panamanian" Lo$ story I had just read!

*DAY 3: THURSDAY, June 1, 2000*: We woke up ~ 8:00 a.m. and had to pass up Ann's kind offer to fix us for breakfast the thickest pancakes in Kentucky (the catch was that we had to wake up at 7:00 a.m., since she had to leave for her seminar--as it turned out, we'd take her up on the offer the following morning!). We had our breakfast at the western deck reading the local newspaper that mentioned a demostration in Greece by extreme religious groups regarding the mentioning of religious affiliation in one's identity card!

After breakfast we visited a deck in the forest south of the house, always been followed by the 3 dogs that were quick to respond to Don's commands about squirrels! Don told us that they don't use that deck very often, because, eventhough it's connected to a power line, it has no phone line and so one can't sit there and get connected to the 'Net--plus, its distance from the house would mean lots of carrying stuff back and forth.

It was getting late in the morning and knowing that it'd get very hot and humid later in the day, we embarked on our second forray into Don's "jungle"! This time we "explored" the northwestern part of the forested area. Don was literally armed with a machettee and was leading the way around the "intricate" system of pathways. He told us that the major "enemy" since he initially bought this property was the poison ivy! The area was initially infested with poison ivy, but after persistent spraying over the years, he has managed to kill it off in many areas, while still fighting it where it's still reigning! The pathways are mowed ~once a month and while he's always careful to avoid going over turtles, the last time he mowed the area, his machine run against a turtle hiding in the grass. Our "exploration" ended on the small pond north of the house.

What next? Well, a ride into town! Don wanted to make photocopies of his most recent story and then drop them off at Dan Shane's place, so we decided to ride along and then visit a local comic-book store, "The Great Escape"!

We rode on the '48 Dodge and headed towards Louisville! I sat in the back seat and I really enjoyed the ride even if it was really hot with no air-conditioning. Other than that, however, the car was in *GREAT* shape! Very roomy and comfortable inside (they *REALLY* knew how to make cars these days!), and felt very safe (with real steel in the front bumpers!). Most people would stare as we drove by as the car really stood out among the modern Camrys, Accords, and Tauruses! Don told us that he's sometimes asked by people "What year is *IT*?"--and he (jokingly) replies: " It's 2000!".

We first made a stop at a photocopying center and we waited under the shade of a tree as Don was taking care of the photocopies inside. At one point, he rushed outside to show us a "real Kentucky redneck" that had just driven up and didn't care to park his car properly but had simply left it where he stopped!

After leaving the photocopying center and following a brief stop at Dan Shane's house, we visited "The Great Escape". The store's managers knew Don and he introduced us as "2 European comic book fans". (I guess they'd be "shocked" if they met *American* Disney comics fans! :-)). We spent ~an hour browsing thru the store and we even found 3 boxes of Disney comics from Dell to Gladstone. Orjan bought a few Dell issues from the 1950s saying that each costs less than a "Kalle Anka" costs nowadays!

After a brief but non-successful stop at a nearby CVS pharmacy to look for post-cards, we rode the Dodge and asked Don to take us to the house where he was borned and raised (actually he lived there until his 9th year). It was a very nice neighborhood in suburbia Louisville, and we parked right in front of the house. Don told us that the place looked almost exactly as it looked 40 years ago, with the only addition being a little tree planted recently. Don showed us the window of his room where he read his (actually his sister's) first Disney comics and where he drew his first comics! We were hoping that someone would actually step out of the house so we could talk to him, but to no avail. A neighbor working in her garden was busy talking on her cellular phone, and after taking a few pictures we rode the Dodge and headed for home. It was early in the afternoon, very hot, and at some point the Dodge gave us a small scare at it started to overheat. Fortunately, after passing some busy intersections the engine was ventilated adequately and the temperature started to fall to less alarming levels...

When we returned to Don's house we rested for a few minutes in the living room and asked to see the stories he drew as a child! We thought that he'd bring out 4-5 booklets, but he came upstairs carrying a big box! The box was full of old agendas and accounting ledgers that Don's father would bring home from work. We started thumbing thru these old mementos and we saw what could well have been Don's first picture-story that he did while in kinderkarten! (the story had "interruptions" for T.V. commercials, just as the yound Don would see them on T.V.!). It was amazing to see that some of his stories where he used stick figures would presage some of his Duck stories (like "Journey to the Center of the Earth"!). Among the most fascinating drawings were copies of 2 Barks stories where he used humans to retrace "The Old Castle's Secret" and (Don's absolute favorite Barks story) "The Golden Helmet". We were also able to locate what could be Don's first Duck drawing (according to Frank Stajano), even though Don himself has some doubts about it really being a Duck!

We spent the rest of the afternoon in Don's studio. Don left us there alone for ~an hour to do some e-Bay "hunting" downstairs. We took countless photos covering every possible angle of the room, (my favorite one is when I was pretending to draw on his drawing board, with a lithograph of Barks' oil painting "McDuck of Duckburg" in the background!), we searched thru the piles of international Disneys free for the taking and took quite a few back, we went thru his file cabinet with copies of all his stories in B&W from initial rough story boards to finished inked panels, we read "The Three Caballeros" (Orjan read the whole thing, I had time only to go thru half of it and I'm really looking forward to seeing it in print!).

We went downstairs when Don informed us that it was time for dinner! After debating whether it was too hot to sit outside, we finally went ahead with the previous evening's set-up: the larger, western deck. This time dinner consisted of smocked chicken, corn-on-the-cob, salad, and cold ale (or simply water for Orjan, who suffered in the heat the previous evening when he had Don's homemade wine!). Personally, I sweated it out, but didn't balk! We really enjoyed this last evening at the Rosas. We discussed economics, politics, traveling, and ...birds!

After dinner we visited Don's studio for one last time! Don never stopped surprising us by bringing out new wonders to feast our eyes; the last was probably the best: his original art for many of his covers, some older ones he said will never part with and some newer ones. It was really a special treat to close off the second day by oggling over those originals!

*DAY 4: FRIDAY, June 2, 2000*: We had decided to leave early, anticipating a 12-hour drive back to Binghamton, NY. Hence, this time we took Ann up on her flap-jacks offer for breakfast! Orjan tried one more thing for the first time (among the many firsts for him during his U.S. visit). Good, ol' Gyro was right there to offer us help with the pancakes!

After breakfast it was time for good-byes: we thanked the Rosas for their wonderful hospitality, for putting us up and feeding us, and sharing their lives with us for two full days. As we drove up the driveway we knew that the chances of making the same trip any time soon (if ever again) were rather slim; at the same time we knew that these two days were something we would treasure for the rest of our lives...

The drive back was more subdued than the one three days earlier. We tried to re-collect our thoughts, compare notes, and exchange opinions on what we had experienced. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant near Erie, PA, and we arrived in Binghamton ~9:00 p.m. It was the end of four wonderful, exhilarating days...

Cheers,

Archontis