"Those
schoolgirl days of telling tales and biting nails are gone
but in my mind I know they will still live on and on."
~ from Donald Black and Mark London's "To Sir, With Love"
Hi all,
Welcome to JABB 199! It's a bit thrown together because I'm all
ready preparing for two big upcoming events. I'd really
appreciate any contributions any of you might have for either.
First, on August 24th I will be sending CABB 3. Many of us at the
JABB YahooGroup decided that it'd be
a good thing to commemorate Charles Rocket
annually on his birthdate. So if you have anything you'd like to
say about him please email me no later than August 23rd. Second,
JABB 200 will follow CABB 3. I'd like to have it be really
special cause, good gosh!, we hit 200! So I'm looking either for
a list of things people have learned from JABB or a message you might
write to your fellow members to celebrate the occasion. I would
need contributions for JABB 200 no later than August 20th. Or if
you need a little extra time that's fine, I'd just like to know by
August 20th how many submissions I can expect.
Now, I'm also working on a little side project. I've decided with
all that's going on in the world, it'd be nice to get a little
positivity and love out there. And I think we're just the people
to do it! So, I'm creating thread angels much like you see here
on our JABB
Store. They will have little tags attached to them that read
"God loves YOU!!!" and a link to this site. I
will then send 5 (at no cost to you) to any JABB member who will agree
to drop 4 off at
locations around them. (You may keep the other one for
yourself.) All you have to do is let me know when you receive the
angels from me and where you dropped them (generally speaking, I don't
need exact addresses). We'll then see if anyone looks us up and
shares their story of how they found the angel with us!
Obviously, I will need the snail mail addies of any of you who choose
to participate. If you'd like references from a couple fellow
JABBers to assure you I'm not a wacko, I'm sure I could supply
those. I really hope this takes off!
If you have any questions about any of this, please don't hesitate to email me or I
also have AIM, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger. I can supply
you with my contact info for those if you email me with your
request.
Finally, I've decided to have a lil extra fun with the newsletter
pages. So whenever I have the time, I'll hide an "easter egg" on
a newsletter page (sorta like on DVDs). In fact, if you're
reading this on the web page, there's an easter egg on here! It's
not a prize, just a lil added fun. Now ya just gotta find
it...
Thanks and have a good week!
God bless,
Jenni
Co-Founder, Head Writer, and Web Mistress of the John/Andrew Bucket
Brigade
In my last installment
of “Jenni and Jenni Write JABB,” I cut it off on August 10th,
1997. This installment begins a few days later and covers my
reactions to the first half of the fourth season of “Touched by an
Angel” as it unfolded. As with last time I retained all
grammatical and punctuation errors just for fun. All errors in
common sense have been retained because removing them would have left
me with precious little material. ;-) These entries
reference several family members so I changed those names. So
they can’t track me down and commit me!
WARNING:
The following contains references to tabloid articles. I stress
*tabloid* articles. Please do not assume any of it is true (as my
younger self seems to have!)
August
21, 1997
“Grandma showed me an article in one of those tabloids.
Supposedly Roma Downey wants more money. At first I was mad at
her. Then I actually read the article. She actually only
wants money for syndication & merchandise. I thought they got
money for that any ways. She threatening to walk
mid-season. They aren’t giving in and say their hiring three new
angels. I’m bothered by that alone. I realize I didn’t like
Andrew at first & now I think he’s great, but 3. Maybe
they’ll just guest star. Back to Roma…
Supposedly she showed up to work despite what a lot of people
thought. Then she went to Della Reese in tears saying she didn’t
want fans to hate her or feel she was deserting them. I feel bad
automatically blaming her. I think she’s right. I also feel
bad I assumed Andrew would leave first. I don’t know why may be
because he’s a guy or because the AOD has never stuck around for
long. I hope she wins, I can’t imagine the show w/o her. On
the flip side Andrew could do very well himself, but I’d miss Monica,
the Angel of Truth. The reason I saw this is because Andrew was
on Promised Land by himself. It was so neat, I think. I’ll
have plenty inspiration for his letter and Roma Downey’s. I’m
more nervous about that than school & its not even my life. I
pray & hope she can stay, the show people seem really mean their
making her come to work super early.”
2006:
::awkward silence:: Wow… I don’t know what’s more psycho
about that: the unquestioning belief in a tabloid or the line “may be
because he’s a guy” as explanation for why Andrew would leave the
show! That’s a surprisingly anti-male sentiment popping up
there! The fact that I was agonizing over issues that had
approximately zero to do with me is also troubling. I love some
of the crazy punctuation, too! Or lack thereof.
Before I move on I would like to stress that was a tabloid article I
was reading. I have no idea if there were salary issues going on
at the time for real or not. If there were I’m sure it was very
complicated and not as black and white as my 15 year old self would
have liked to have believed!
September
5, 1997
(What’s happening here is my fanatic religious cousin I only met once
[thankfully] was on one of her rants. Names changed to protect me
from another religious lecture.)
“Kayla just sat there and gave me a lecture on how history books should
be about the founding father’s religion. Meanwhile I’m looking at
her occasionally nodding & plotting out TBA’s new season (which I
believe starts with a 2 hour movie.) She [“Kayla”] actually had
the nerve to tell me I needed a hair-cut. Now to the important
news. The tabloids, who just a few weeks [ago] I had believed, I
now hate & despise.”
2006:
I then write about learning of Princess Di’s death. Hence the
hating of the tabloids. Really it’s a pretty somber entry but I
include it here cause it’s the first documented case of my zoning out
and pondering TBAA during a lecture. Something I got very good at
in college, believe me!
September
8, 1997
More names changed to protect me!
“Now I’ll tell about the article in T.V. Guide. Apparently Taylor
(Corky) and a Hispanic angel with become regulars. Roma Downey
will play characters other than Monica and there’s something about
Broadway & beauty pageant fantasy episodes. I don’t quite get
that. There’ll be shows about cults, runaways, and
blacklisting. Randy Travis will be back for Christmas.
Better yet I saw scenes the first episode is a cross-over with Promised
Land. It looks really good. There’s an Andrew
crying/praying scene. Speaking of Andrew I remember when Jake and
Kira were making fun of Andrew I had said I didn’t care if he went bald
and gained two hundred pounds. Well I saw the scenes and… I knew
something was different. Jake said he’d cut his hair and dyed it
but that didn’t seem right. So Mom watched it and I asked her
what was different. It seems he’s gained about 20 pounds. I
don’t care, in fact, I think its fitting for a guy who eats rich,
French food. I can’t wait to see the show and no matter what
Andrew is still the coolest.”
2006:
“And I wanna marry him and the wedding colors will be peach and Barbie
pink and we’ll have ten kids and they’ll, like, be totally
adorable and
I’ll name one Muffy.” Why did I have to sound
so much like a teenybopper?!? WHY?!
And good 
gosh what’s
with the weight
gain talk?! That may have been the period
where I was psycho-paranoid that someone I knew would end
up with anorexia (I
watched way too many Lifetime movies) and so I was actually excited
when people gained weight. I’ve actually noticed something of a
theme in my journals. Anything worried sounding about John Dye is
preceded or followed by a similar worry regarding someone I knew at the
time. Can we say transference?
Is anyone else starting to think, though, that 15 year old Jenni had no
concept of John Dye? He’s always Andrew but yet I reference Roma
and Della quite often! Oh well. Also fun that this is the
first, albeit cryptic, reference to Rafael. Corky, of course,
refers to Chris Burke’s role in “Life Goes On,” a show I loved.
October
1, 1997
“I hate the tabloids! They’re saying Andrew & Tess are mad at
each other b/c he wants more $. Get over it! I went to
their website & his. People are writing in furious about the
rumors.”
2006:
Well, at least I got it through my head that tabloids generally are
rumors. Still mildly creeped out by my failure to properly
differentiate actors from characters. One wonders how Andrew
would spend an actor’s salary…
October
12, 1997
“We’ll I’ve seen 3 TBaA episodes. Each has gotten better &
better. Both Andrew & Monica have their raises. Della
Reese thinks that the co. is discriminating because was only offered
12%. Andrew got 30% & Monica 100%. She says she loves
the cast, so I’m not worried. When the show premiered the 3 of
them threw a party for the crew. Tonight’s episode looks really
good. More later.”
2006:
Seriously have no idea how accurate any of that was. I do recall
seeing actual bona fide news articles about this but I can’t remember
anything specific. I’m beginning to wonder if I even had John
Dye’s name memorized at this point. Why is he always
Andrew?!?
November
1, 1997
In this deranged entry I detail the trauma of losing power for a week
after a massive snowstorm in my area.
“Right now I’m preoccupied w/something, or maybe someone else.
Our house has had no electricity since late Sat. night. I
couldn’t watch TBAA so I called grandma & she agreed to tape
it. Then she lost power. I tried Meghan but she didn’t
answer. Finally I called Aunt Karla and she was more than happy
to tape it. I found out later that it ended up on two tapes but
that was all right. Aunt Karla thought I’d only missed a couple
seconds. That was fine. Wednesday at school Meghan said I
had to watch it & see Andrew. I figured it was simply because
he was in shorts and it was the camp episode I’d been looking forward
to. Last night I went over there [Aunt Karla’s] to
spend the
night. We couldn’t find the tapes so I waited til the
morning. It had ended up on two tapes and they thought they’d
found both of them. So I watched the first tape. Besides
Mitch picking on Andrew (someone) it was a great
episode. The
angels ended up running a camp for HIV+ girls. They all thought
Andrew was adorable but don’t we all. Rafael was
playing the
guitar, storyline great, and there was going to be a talent show &
I hoped Andrew would sing. He was the swimming
instructor and one
of the girls, Erin, got this crush on him. Here he was
philosophical, listening to her, acknowledging she could die. She
went to the rock where they wrote the names all the girls that didn’t
come back and wrote ‘Erin loves Andrew’ on it. It was kind of
cool but weird to think about. I guess that’s how Andrew felt
when she showed it to him. He said he was flattered but it
couldn’t 
happen.
She screamed at him to leave and he did with his
head hung down. It was so pathetic. Then her friends came
and they started to erase his name. Erin & them agreed to
suicide pact and the tape started to rewind. I have to know what
happened. How did Andrew do? Did they kill
themselves? Did Andrew cry or maybe sing? I hope, hope,
hope Mitch finds the rest the suspense is driving me crazy and I might
not know for 7 months if he doesn’t find it.”
2006:
My cousin “Mitch” did not find it. I waited seven months and,
believe it or not, I survived. :-) But gosh that was
horrible
not seeing the end! My favorite part of this entry is “They all
thought Andrew was adorable but don’t we all.” I definitely
did! And do! For the record, I no longer think Erin’s
writing her and Andrew’s name on the Face was remotely cool. Eek.
November
9, 1997
Because we were with out power (and heating) for a week, my family
ended up staying with various family members. I spent one night
at my paternal grandparents’ house. That was a treat because they
had the Internet! Know that I cringed as I transcribed the
following from my journal…
“Wednesday we stayed at Grandpa Bob’s and I surfed the net.
Mostly I stayed at John Dye’s home page. It was so
fun, it was
pathetic. I read an interview with him and some of our
similarities are scary like fav restaurant- Taco Bell, Movie as child-
Wizard of Oz, very religious, nice, etc. The only disappointment
was that he smokes. So now Jake keeps joking about him dying.
I missed TBAA but Grandma taped it and that night I did get to see the
scenes for the next one… “My Dinner with Andrew.” It wasn’t until
Thurs. during PL that I saw them again & I totally freaked.
Andrew’s going out on a date and I think he’s falling in love with
her. Adam came back. In less than 2 hours I’ll know what
happens. I’m actually going to get their letters out
tomorrow. I hope I hear back but I know it’s hard for them to
write back or even send a picture.
Well more later. I hope Andrew stays an angel!!”
2006:
Oof… Where to start? Obviously it’s insane that I was
trying to build a case for John Dye and myself being similar.
But, hey, at least I remembered his name and used it properly!
“Jake,” by the way, is my alias for my brother who received 
endless joy
in teasing me about John Dye. Easy target since I’m uber-worried
about lung cancer in general. Brat… And, as with the weight
issues, this entry is followed by me relating a conversation I had with
a smoking friend my own age who made me promise to never start because
she was all ready feeling the effects but couldn’t stop. So
definitely transference.
Nice that I nearly had a nervous breakdown over MDWA. Very
interesting that I thought Andrew could potentially fall in love
considering I now believe he’s asexual. Although, in my defense,
those promos were totally misleading. If I remember correctly
they actually contained some variation on the words “But will an angel
get too close to his assignment and lose his wings?”
EEEEEKKK!!! I still remember what I was wearing that night when I
watched that episode. In my own home! We’d gotten power
back, finally!
December
31, 1997
Tucked into my year in review for 1997 is this:
“Well here we are the last day of 1997. Only 5 hours left.
I read all my 1997 entries and boy a lot has changed. I haven’t
watched B&B [“Beauty and the Beast”] or Christy in the longest
time. I love TBaA and its the best of the three.”
2006:
And so my 1997 ended with thoughts of TBAA and several teenage concerns
and dramas I won’t relate here. In the next installment (whenever
that is) I’ll finish out TBAA’s 4th season. Those entries will
also cover my family getting the Internet and… the origins of
JABB!
CABB
3
JABB
TOC
(Photo Credits: The photographs used on this page
are from "Touched by an Angel" and owned by CBS Productions, Caroline
Productions, and Moon Water Productions. They are not being used
to seek profit.)
