Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air

So, I've had some inquiries into our wedding gift from Tom Snyder and exactly how that came about... so here's the story.

Years ago, when I was in high school I watched Tom Snyder's show on CNBC nightly (which later was followed by The Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder on CBS). What can I say, I was a geek. This truth is supported by the fact that one of my big nights out senior year was going over to one of my classmate's houses to play Axis and Allies with two of our other classmates. Needless to say I was the only girl. But I digress. Tom's show was a great format and the Mom & Dad had remembered Tom from all of his prior incantations on TV and so I was a loyal watcher too. When I went away to college, suddenly I was living in a dorm and was, for the first time since 1979, without access to cable television. Thus, no CNBC, and there was no such thing as YouTube or simulcast on the computer... (who would think that 1994 was the stone ages, but alas, it was). Being without tv, the Mom would send me up VHS tapes of various shows, including Tom's.

Now sometime during high school I had watched an episode of Saturday Night Live which included a skit about how everyone could do an Ethel Merman impression. This made me decide that if everyone can do Ethel, than I could too. So, I began developing my own Ethel impersonation, specifically being able to belt out "There's No Business Like Show Business" (with occasional forays into "Everything's Coming Up Roses!!!!!!"

Leave it to my Mom to find a way for my Tom Snyder watching and my Ethel impersonating to find a way to converge. Tom was a member of the Train Collector's Association, and my Dad's been a member of the TCA since it began and every year the TCA prints out a directory. Tom's contact info was in it, and apparently my Mom sent Tom a note letting him know that I was a loyal viewer but that I wasn't able to watch his show now that I was away at school... and that I had this talent, albeit not necessarily so unique...

Then, one night during my first semester the phone rings. My roommate, Cynthia Lanier from Maine answers the phone. It's Tom Snyder. Calling. Live. His guest that night was the woman who voices Bart Simpson and he had taken time out of his show to give me a call (the ultimate Shout out, you could say) and Tom asked me to do my Ethel impersonation. How could I say no?

So there I was, on a cold, dark, winter night in Ithaca being simulcast across the country bellowing "There's No Business Like Show Business."

Afterwards, I sent Tom a Cornell Tie (as he was fond of wearing college ties on air) and from then on there would be the occasional correspondence... when the Husband and I were sending out our wedding invitations we sent one Tom's way, just in case he happened to be in NYC the weekend we were getting married (which just happened to be the same day that Conan O'Brien and his wife were married... it's a good weekend!) Alas, he couldn't make it, but in his stead he sent us a lovely Krups Ice Cream maker from our Williams Sonoma registry.

The ice cream maker made it from our apartment on 50th Street to our new old house when we moved in 2004, but alas, when I finally went to use it we just couldn't figure it out and the box was long since gone. Thanks to the Daring Baker's challenge I've moved on to a new cuisinart, but I'll never forget Tom, his colortinis and our ice cream maker.