The Early To Bed Tent – Oasis 239 began 2012 with a salute to the 120^th anniversary of Oliver Hardy’s birth.  The evening began with with Jimmy Wiley, Jr. leading us in the singing of the “Sons Of The Desert” song along with toasts to those great supporting players from the Hal Roach Studios.  Next, Bob Duncan offered a toast to the memory of Larry Arnold, one of our longtime ETB Tent members who had passed away a few days before our meeting.  After some more announcements, the evening’s film program began with “Ship’s Reporter” featuring Oliver Hardy being interviewed by Jack Mangan in 1950.  This was followed by the Laurel & Hardy magic act from “The Hollywood Revue Of 1929” plus the boys starring in one of their funniest silent comedies, “Their Purple Moment”.  Before our intermission, we tried to backtrack a bit, since our December meeting was postponed by “Mother Nature”, with a “bouncing ball” sing-a-long of Auld Lang Syne.   During our break, we all celebrated Ollie’s birthday with some chocolate cake.  Also, Pat Klemz, one of our ETB Tent members celebrated her birthday with us on her actual birth date, January 21st.  Our rafffe saw four winners take home some nice prizes.  Many thanks to ETB Tent member Mark Lochte for reading a very sentimental tribute to the friendship of Stan and Ollie from a past “Dear Abby” column. The evening concluded with a screening of “The Fighting Kentuckian” starring John Wayne with Oliver Hardy as his sidekick, Willie Paine.  Our appreciation is expressed to all of you who generously donated canned goods to La Casa de San Gabriel Community Center to assist those who are less fortunate.  As always, we are very grateful to those of you who stayed after the meeting to help us put the chairs away and pack up.