All aboard The FranDog Express!

Way back in June 1968, two women shared a hospital room in the maternity ward of St. Mary's Hospital in Pierre, SoDak (home to Uncle Matt's Zesto). This was back in the days when soon-to-be fathers would drop their pregnant wives at the door of the nearest hospital and tell the nurse to, "Call me when she pops... I have to get back to my office." Anyway, one woman was about to give birth to her very first child, while the second lady was working on her fourth kid. The latter mom (Stew's mom and my Grandma Judy) was quite relaxed and anticipated no problems with the pending birth of her baby, but the soon-to-be first-time mom was quite frantic, saying things like, "What if my baby is ugly? What if it's stupid? What if it has a deformed nose? What if all of these things happen? Oh, the agony!" But my Grandma Judy -- who already had three, beautiful, gifted children -- told the new mom-to-be to "Just relax... I'm sure everything will be fine." Boy was Grandma Judy wrong!

On June 25th, both Jeff "Franny" Fransen and Brett "StewDog" Stewart entered the world just a few hours apart. The two lads would eventually become good friends to form the super-duo of FranDog. They aged rather quickly and in 1970 joined forces with Jimi Hendrix to briefly form The Fran-Dog Experience. After Jimi tragically passed away a year later, Franny and Stew returned to being FranDog and have remained together for nearly 40 years. To this day, the only disagreement they have is over who has the bigger nose -- Franny's is thick and wide, while Stew's is long and crooked. One thing they can agree on is that they are both somewhat peculiar looking, but what can they do?

Anyway, together with my Uncle Jimmy, the two fellas are promoting an extraordinary event to occur later this month to mark the 40th anniversary of FranDog. So, stay tuned for more details in the coming days. In the meantime, climb aboard The FranDog Express and enjoy the ride...