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Photos and Commentary courtesy of
Debby Schwenson & Helen
Fredericks - Thanks Helen & Debby!!!!!
Helen
"I just love this man!" Fredericks' Commentary
Hello Fellow Warbides!
Well, yesterday was absolutely wonderful! I got to the theater
in Hollywood, where the ceremony was held, a bit early = about 8:30
AM. (the ceremony was to begin at 10:30 AM!) (Not that I was excited
or anything!) :-)
The theater was opened and the Post Office was already setting up all
the Opening day goodies!! A whole table of Cary Stamps,
First day issue catches! Framed Cary stamps! Sheets of Cary
stamps! Cary Stamps mounted on biographies! I thought I
must have died and heaven was full of Cary!!!!!
Well, trying to appear a calm, sensible person ... I kept my squealing
to a low squeak! Although, I do think a few "Oh My
Goodness!" and "Ohhhhhh, isn't he so
handsome!!!" sneaked out! Oh, yeah, I think I told this
poor man, who was helping me. "I just love this man!!"
I bought a bunch of stuff, which I took out to my car! Walked
around the lobby, waiting for Debby. Then, more staff from the
Post Office showed up ... with more Cary stuff! One of the items
was a framed, matted page of Cary stamps with a plaque stating First
Day Issue!! And a few other envelopes with First Day
Cancellations. So I, run ... err walk calmly, over to the table
and buy up the new stuff.
Finally, Debby arrived with her sister Cyndi. Good, someone else
to buy stuff! Of course I had to show Debby everything they
had...well, I would have shown her everything, but by then my
drooling was getting out of control and I was asked to stand away from
the table!
Finally at 10 AM they let us into the theater! I was standing at
the top of the stairs, while Debby and Cyndi took the elevator down to
Theater 3. At exactly 10 AM, ran over the usher ... err walked past
him and headed straight to the theater! I was the 1st one
in and went straight to the front row. The majority of the seats
in the first 2 rows were reserved, but there were a few on the
end open. So I grab 3 seats and acted like I certainly belonged there!
The ceremony finally started. Johnny Grant was Master of
Ceremony. He introduced a lot of Postal workers and Barbara
Grant Jayne. Barbara was in a camel suits. Knee high skirt,
short jacket, and a cream color sweater, with camel low heeled pumps.
She is a very classy, gracious lady.  I
was snapping away and Debby was video taping it. When
Barbara was speaking I noticed that there were 2 VIP seats left
empty, so I quickly move over to one. I smile at the real VIP
sitting next to me. (It turns out that she edited a short movie
that was shown and was produced and directed by the actor who
played the eldest some in Room for One More!)
Barbara was a very good speaker. Jennifer was not there. After
the film clip ... it was soooo good! ... I was swooning at lot, cause
there were a lot of kissing scenes in it! Yummy!!!
Then Barbara, Johnny Grant and a couple of Post Office bigwigs
revealed the Cary Grant stamp! It was a huge Cary
Stamp!!! Wait till you see the photo's!!! (I immediately thought
about Lil Deb's statement about 'licking' Cary !! You'd have loved
this one !!!)
Afterwards, Barbara, the artist and many Postal people sat at a table
and signed autographs. Barbara was very nice and I was
really impressed! 
The artist knows VDeb! He said to say
Hi!
Well, I must be off to work! My feet have not touched the
ground yet! (You should have seen me at work yesterday
afternoon!)
I'll get picks developed today and start scanning them and sending
them to VDeb!
Later gators! Helen
Debby
Schwenson's Turn to Drool
I was up at 4:30 am (with my hubby sitting
up in bed giving me
that "now I know you are mad" look. I was charged with
coffee and on the road by 5:20am. I picked my sister up at 6:20
(I think we have a convert on our hands). We were on the freeway and
heading for Hollywood by 6:30. Our plan was to meet Helen at
around 8am.. NOT!!!
It has been many years since I tackled the
LA rush hour traffic..
We did not get there until 9:30!!! Helen did not lie!! she
almost
bought out the place.. I think everyone behind the tables knew her
credit card number by heart! She gave us the grand tour and we
did
some shopping. Oh you just could not believe how beautiful it was to
see his face all over these tables... it made me want to just lay on
the table...(that would be a L.Deb story)
 They would not let anyone into the theatre
until 10:00 so Helen waited at the top of the stairs while my sister
and I waited at the elevator (my sister is disabled) at 10 o'clock on
the nose Helen was down those stairs
like a shot.. (pacemaker, what pacemaker!) When Cyndi and I arrived I
was almost breathless at the HUGE screen with Cary's image on it. So
we made our way to the front of the stage where Helen had secured us
seats in the front row, about 8 seats away from Barbara and the seat
next to me had a VIP sign in it... Now the heart was pumping.  It
got more exciting by the minute watching the VIP's filling the seats
around us. Then they started playing music, loud Dean Martin
music!! It really set the mood. After some music and anticipation
Barbara and several VIP's came down side Isle to my right.. I had
video camera ready and followed them to there seats. They were not 10
feet in front of me... and then I realized, I had the camera ready but
I had failed to turn it on!!! I turned it on and got some tape of
everyone greeting Barbara as she sat in her seat.
ROTC Color Guard
members Charis Elicamal,
Jose Magollan, Wryalson Cortez, Rocio Nyunez and Gloria Salinas with Johnny Grant**
Johnny Grant... the Honorary Mayor
of Hollywood to the stage.. He
welcomed everyone to the ceremony and then presented the Color Guard,
Jr. ROTC from Hollywood High and introduced Freddie Gorman who
sang the National Anthem. Freddie Gorman is the Writer/
Producer/ Recording artist of "Please Mr. Postman".
Johnny Grant introduced Michael J. Deas and then several Official
Postal people. The first speaker  was Jean Picker Firstenberg, Director
CEO of American Film Institute. The next speaker was Barbara Grant
Jaynes. Barbara was eloquent and charming and spoke of Cary with such
fondness. She made him human and touchable. She spoke of his childhood
and his struggle to survive but it was with pride and admiration.
Barbara poked fun at him as any loving wife would, she smiled at the
memories along with everyone in the room.
With a few more introductions it was time
to unveil the stamp.... Barbara, Johnny Grant and several Postal
Officials were on stage, Barbara and S. David Fineman did the
unveiling... It was breathtaking.... Everyone in the room just
gasped.
 After
lots of smiles and photos Johnny Grant introduced Patrick Curtis, as a
child he was in Gone With The Wind
and Room for One More. They showed
a wonderful video produced by Patrick,
Cary's life in the movies. The end of the video was a clip of Cary
accepting his Oscar... He had tears
in his eyes and said " I shall cherish this till I
die" " No greater honor could come to any man
than the respect of his colleagues." My eyes were
tearing by that time. What an gracious and eloquent man he was.
The ceremony being over Barbara,
Michael Deas and many of the honored quests sat at a long table to
sign autographs. That alone was worth the day.. I spoke to Michael
Deas first, he is very kind and he was excited that I know Debbie
Dunlap... he said to tell her hi and then told me how much help she
was to him during this project... Go Debbie!!! I then spoke to
Barbara, she was so kind and so approachable. What a classy woman she
is, she signed several items for me and we spoke briefly while she was
signing them.. Then it was all over and time to leave, It was
hard to walk out of the theater... On the way out they gave us a pin
of the stamp, Helen tried to get a couple extra but they were very
limited.. I will put mine in a shadow box and put it on the wall in my
office. So that was First Day for me and the rest is History....
Debby
** Why do I have such
a large photo of the color guard? Because I'm a mom, and I
know that these kids will be thrilled to see themselves on the
internet!!
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