Dale,

Regarding your sentence "Maybe he represented an innocence or a much simpler time. I don't know."  I just wanted to add a few things (and these don't relate to Bob Hope). There is a perception that many of us have that the 40's and 50's was a simpler more innocent time. And it's easy to hold such a view given today's problems with illegitimacy, drugs, violence, and the general "anything that goes" mentality. However, there was a price paid for those "simpler" times and it was paid by women, minorities, and homosexuals for they were shut-off from participating as equals in ways that we cannot even imagine. Just my two cents, Dale.

Hope to be dipping my toes in your freezing Maine waters in August.

Peter T.