Trippin' With Willy

This is a four-part collection of pictures, videos, and stories from trips over the years with our dear friend, Willy Bippp, who left too soon on December 25, 2008.  Most of our travels together were to Yosemite, a very special place for all three of us.

Biff met Willy in 1977 or so, and they worked together on several theater projects, eventually teaming up on The Piparoos, a comedy act, over the next 30 years.  (But The Piparoos is another story.)

Taylor showed up later, playing with “the boys” as often as possible, sometimes even in Piparoo shows, but especially in Yosemite.

Willy was a constant friend from the very start of Biff & Taylor’s relationship:  their first date in 1982 (or was it 1983?!?) was to see Willy on opening night of a play he starred in:  “Teibele and her Demon” (guess which part Willy played!).

The following is a meager tribute to the many laughs over the years since…

(NOTE: There is music with each video.)

 Willy Shows Biff & Taylor Yosemite

Willy Brings His

Future Wife to Yosemite

Lots of Fun in Yosemite

Over the Years!

And some more fun with Willy...

How could we know then

how much we'd miss him now?

Thanks for all the fun, old pal Willy...

Go Fly A Kite!

On Friday, January 9, 2009, Biff (my life partner for the last 27 years) and I went to the park to get out of the house.  Here in Southern California, the weather was beautiful but windy. Too windy to ride our bikes, but too nice to NOT get out there and enjoy it. We drove to Lake Balboa in the San Fernando Valley suburbs of Los Angeles.  The "lake" is a large pond of reclaimed water.  It hosts a bunch of ducks, geese, and other birds -- not to mention adults, children, and pets.  It has a nice walking path around the lake, a nice bike path through the park, and nice big grassy areas to hang out and play.  The people and pet watching is great.  So is the wildlife watching.

But, best of all that day, Biff brought along a couple kites to fly.  We recently lost a very dear friend of ours (he passed away in his sleep on December 25th), and it has been rough.  Our old pal, Willy, always had a kite to fly when we camped together.  It seemed like a nice tribute if we needed any further motivation to get out there.

After we took a walk around the lake, we pulled our chairs, a snack, and the kites out to an open spot. Then we assembled Biff's favorite kite.

Sadly, I didn't get any good pictures of him flying this kite.  I couldn't manage to get him and the kite in the same picture.  It's a really pretty kite.

Here's a shot of it flying in the air! 

Unfortunately, the wind was pretty strong and it pulled the kite (and string reel) right out of Biff's hands.  He ran after it, but it took off above the tall trees and continued out over the lake.  It was amazing that the reel didn't get caught in the top of a tree!  Biff watched it fly itself across the lake, the reel bouncing over the water and behind trees on the other side.  It was gone! Bummer.

We agreed we'd go check for it on the other side when we left, and Biff pulled out a simpler, smaller kite to fly in the meantime.

It was such a beautiful day.  I couldn't help feeling grateful for living in SoCal.  My brother and niece are both living in NYC these days, and I keep thinking of them in the terrible cold. I was born and raised here in SoCal. I know I'm spoiled.  I was proud of myself for recognizing how special the day was, especially for January 9th!

Here's a little "dancing kite" video footage.  With my little camera (and no view finder - Boy, do I miss a view finder!) I couldn't actually see if I was getting the kite in my footage.  Not too bad considering I was shooting blind!

There were other surprises in store, too. Take a look at the above picture.

I never saw the dog playing Frisbee when we were at the park (check the down right corner).  I used my zoom to close in on the people flying the cool kite.  It was a great surprise to see the dog catching his Frisbee. I've just discovered taking "continuous" pictures on my camera, so I'll just hold the shutter button down and get a great set of pictures to choose from.

Here is a crop of a later shot in this series. That dog was so proud!

I also got this great picture of the moon in the bright blue sky.

                      

And here's some video of a view over the small lake.

I wasn't the only one taking pictures of these birds.  I say they're storks, although Biff argued they were pelicans (I'm pretty sure he's wrong on that...). They probably have a nest right there by the waterfall.

I couldn't quite decide if the storks liked the duck couple eating right there in front of them or not.

But we had to pack it up pretty early, being January and all.  They closed the park at 5pm. Here's a little video of Biff reeling in the kite.

Believe it or not, we actually found the runaway kite!  A very nice stranger had it. He and his young son saw it escape across the lake. Some other people collected the kite, and this man had collected the reel separately.  Apparently they all flew the kite for the rest of the afternoon, in hopes that the owner would see it.  But the park was closing.  We were really lucky -- they were trying to figure out how to disassemble it and put it in their car when we drove past on our way out and saw it! 

A fine end to the visit.  I hope you felt a little bit like you were there.  

Especially you folks living in the cold right now.