Meet Ronnie...

I was nine or ten when I discovered DOCTOR WHO on the local PBS station on the Mississippi Gulf Coast around 1981 or 82.  I took to it like a tadpole takes to rainwater.  It came on in the afternoon and I saw this old guy riding around in this old yellow car.  Running, jumping, and then he walked into this funny looking blue box and took off through time.  Done!  I'm hooked.  It was cool for me because PBS was showing all the episodes each weekday afternoon, one at a time and back to back so I got to watch it like a story that kept changing with new adventures and cliff hangers.  Then this funny guy with a long scarf and a little tin dog came on, taking over from the old guy.  You might as well just poured sugar over my Fruit Loops and called it a day.

My sister thought I went mad.  I took an refrigerator box and cut it up and made my own time machine.  My dog, Highwater, and I would go on crazy adventures.  I remember being in the front yard one day and we were attacked by some strange aliens trying to catch Highwater and I, so we had to crash land our time machine on a deserted planet.  This actually meant that the dog and I rolled this painted box down the hill on the front lawn and ripped this thing to shreds.  Talk about fun.  I wound up finding supplies to repair our ship, aka Aluminum Foil and Duct Tape.  As a Timelord, I could repair anything.  In 1982, we moved and I could not find DOCTOR WHO, so I moved on to Star Trek.  That story is a different post.  My sister never forgot to remind me about K-9 or how I went gaga over DOCTOR WHO when it came on. She still talks about my Time Machine that I built.

Here is the best part.  I discovered that I had and imaginary friend after I found some funky metal thing that as an adult I realize that it's part of construction material for laying concrete.  But, for me it was a communication device that I could use to talk to K-9.  I even went as far as putting a string on it and keeping it around my neck so when I was away from the house, I could still talk to him while he was helping me keep an eye on Highwater.  As an adult, I've even named my little grey kitty K-9, he is the best friend a man could ever have.  Seriously, he acts like a dog that let's himself out to go pee.  How cool is that!?

Let's jump ahead to the new series.  Wow!  Just Wow!  I was 10 again.  You couldn't drag me away from the TV.  Oh, when they brought K-9 back, speechless....

I love this show.  Everything about it.  Time travel, humor, great stories, adventures and so much more.  Honestly I don't care who the Doctor is, I'm gonna watch it.  I even decided that it was time that I start to build my own Doctor costume.  So the first thing I did was go out and buy some knitting needles and teach myself how to knit.  It took a few try’s, but I wound up with my own design and my very own scarf.  Since then I've made like three more.  Then I found Krewe du Who!

Talk about being a kid again with other kids being a kids again also.  Being from New Orleans I try to keep myself and my family involved in NOLA.  I want to make sure that my daughter has a tie from there as one of her homes when she grows up.  My wife found out about this strange “Science Fiction” Krewe in NOLA that she just had to see for herself, so I tagged along.  I bumped into Krewe du Who on Facebook and that's how I met Paul, Kristin and Tim.  So I started dragging the family back to NOLA for Cosplay and meet ups.  Next thing you know I'm letting strange people sleep in my house (strange, not strangers, there is a difference), running fan tables, talking on panels and running games for a Con.  How did all this happen?  I've even been trying to start a branch of Krewe du Who here in Mobile.  I've called the “Who Mystics”, Mobile uses Mystic Societies where NOLA uses Krewes, so I just twisted it up.  I started to have meet ups here at the local Library, restaurants and such.  Not as active as KdW, but the hearts are still there.

So now I've got my family involved in everything DOCTOR WHO.  Angie and I are even going to have our vow renewal and do a DOCTOR WHO themed ceremony.  We all watch it together and we love doing this as a family.  Never in my wildest dreams, as a child, did I ever think that DOCTOR WHO would still be on, I would have friends that openly love it also and that I could share this with my daughter and turn her into a future geek.