Considering all that we have lost in the Seattle/Puget Sound area in recent years landmarks, personalities, and alot of our unique character, it does my heart good to see "J.P." still active.
I've had the pleasure of seeing him in person on several occasions in the last several years. I have a picture of him and me form the All Ford Picnic at Bellevue Community College from several years ago, and an autographed copy of his book that I purchased and he signed at the Grand Re-Opening of the Ballard Market a few years ago. I've also been to a couple of the Holiday appearances at MOHAI.
At one of those appearances, they had brought back the "Pal-O-Vac" which when fed with cards with kids' name on them would be able to tell Santa if that kid had been naughty or nice. As we entered MOHAI, we were handed such a card that we could fill out if we wished. It had a space on it for the person to write their wish on. The only thing that came to mind was "world peace" and I thought that sounded kind of corny. So, I thought some more and came up with for "J.P.'s book to sell a million copies."
As Ketch started thumbing through the cards and handing them to J.P. it seemed that all the cards had been filled out by adults. J.P. urged Ketch to just go through them, and pick out ones that had been filled out by kids. He did so, and at a certain point stopped and chuckled, and handed a card to J.P. He looked at it and and chuckled too and said that he knew the Pal-O-Vac would say that this person had been good. I actually got a good feeling at that time, then he called out my name, and called me down to the stage. We chatted a bit, and then he gave me a J.P. Patches arm patch.
Ironically, at the same event the year before, he called me down to the stage to participate in a game of "Simon Says". He asked me to choose a woman from the audience as another player, so I chose a friend of mine that happened to be in the audience. He then chose two other "couples" and the game proceeded, and my friend and I won!
Just last night, I ordered a copy of J.P.'s book to be sent to a friend and former co-worker of mine, who also is a huge J.P. fan, that will be 50 on Jan. 7th. I would have loved to arrange for a surprise J.P. visit, to a party for her, (I wonder how much that would cost!) but she and her husband moved to Idaho last year.
