Brian Coltrane

Heh! You're welcome. I figured we needed to explain the "Pervis" thing because people tend to jump to other conclusions about the meaning. We could make a whole page - or website - from the trivia questions that have been going on in the Forums. Some of those are really tough, and I'm grateful that the questions we get in email aren't as difficult.

Saying that your state is "sorta shaped like a rectangle" isn't waxing poetic, ya know. But it's accurate. All I remember about the Keystone State is driving through a part of it on my way to Virginia in years past, and going through this huge tunnel carved through the base of a mountain. That was cool. I was surprised how hilly parts of PA were. All I know about Ohio, is it takes at least three hours to drive through it. I've been to Cincinnati a couple times on business, stayed in hotel that was right across from the WKRP building. But after staring at it for 10 minutes I was at a loss for anything else to do. The Ohio Valley is very scenic, though, I remember that. Back to your fairs - no picked groundhog gizzards, eh? I've seen venison at some fairs, in the form of burgers and meat jerky, but venison is a dry, chewy meat and I'm not fond of the gamey taste. I've heard that goat tastes better but I've never bothered finding out. Anyway, have fun at the stunt show tomorrow, and tell us all about it when you get back! Give the NE Ohio Dukes our regards. I hope to see one of their shows myself in the future.

Awright, then what's the traditional and popular fair food in Pennsylvania? Philly cheese steak on a stick? I thought you were from Ohio for some reason. Maybe because you talk about Ohio. You'll have to wax on about Pennsylvania more often so I don't get confused.

Believe it or not, we actually finished a project around here! Our FAQ page has been updated with more Dukes of Hazzard facts. The topics were taken from the scores of email questions we've received over the years. We've also thrown in a couple little-known tidbits and included a brief history of DukesFest. This ain't as robust as the tough stuff that runs on the Trivia thread, but it's a good overview of the popular topics. HazzardNet FAQ

Welcome back, Redneck Girl! I'm glad you had a good time overall and that you got a chance to see some of the natural beauty of the area. I appreciate you giving the complete and honest account here of what you liked, and what you didn't like. I'm sorry that the autograph fees in some cases were so high. I think I paid $10 for a photo with John back in the Nashville days. Now it's $20 bucks? That's a lot of grits. Sounds like Jimmie's price went up too. I'm especially troubled by the reports of line-jumpers. There's always a few at any shindig, but it only takes one person taking exception for a fight to happen, and nobody needs that. I'm also concerned about having people just run for the line, out of control. Would have been very easy for someone to get hurt. You have pointed out some serious, honest issues that need a solution, to ensure that these events are safe and enjoyable for everyone. About the special needs fans...we ran into that in Nashville, and it was another tough problem to solve because of the sheer numbers. (The special needs line for Cathy itself could have taken up an entire day.) But for non-special needs fan to jump into that line as a shortcut is deplorable. I do have some ideas that I'll share with the powers that be, if they plan on a future Homecoming or DukesFest. Hopefully next year I'll be able to attend and volunteer. I'll bring a battery-operated cattle prod for the line jumpers. We look forward to seeing your pics in the image gallery! I'll check out your FacelessBook page too. Seeing as how your face is always covered by that "01" button.

Welcome back! Haven't seen anyone upload photos yet, I think people are just getting home. You made the right choice. You'll have more chances to see General Lee's, but the chance to meet Cathy only rolls around once in a blue moon. There is a brief newscast out there that's pretty good, and I updated our homepage with a link to it. Also keep an eye on our Image Gallery. Whups, looks like we need to add a category for "Hazzard Homecoming", but of course folks are welcome to post photos in the Forums here, or wherever in the gallery...we're not too picky. For anyone reading this - we'd love to have some fan perspectives on the event, and any photos/videos. I know a lot of fans didn't get to go to this thing and any material is appreciated.

What's the popular n' traditional "fair food" in Ohio? You got buckeyes on a stick or something like that?

The famous Hazzard County Stunt Show, presented by the Northeast Ohio Dukes, will be at the Lake County Fair on August 20th! There are NO cast appearances involved, this is a car stunt show only. But it's a great show, featuring the General Lee and police cars in live, dirt-flying, chase-and-crash action. Here's a link with the where and what: Hazzard County Stunt Show They always pack the place, so get there early for a good seat!

Next year I'm definately going to try to get to DukesFest or HazzardHomecoming, or whatever they call it by then. Wish I could have made it this year, but it wasn't in the cards. I wonder how folks are doing in Sperryville. Weather forecast is calling for thunderstorms Saturday and Sunday, with Sunday looking a little worse.

They probably needed some themselves after dealing with us. Heh! We now interrupt these stories to bring you another post about Hazzard Homecoming. I put some tips and whatnot in here for first-timers. This is on a separate thread, but for your convenience here is a link: Hazzard Homecoming How-To's And now back to our program. I got a lot of DukesFest stories. Lessee...there was the year I almost killed Daney, from HNet, here. Accidently of course. I'll see if she chimes in before I take that one public. Then there was the 2005 DukesFest, where I broiled myself, running around without sunscreen. Mufn and I and a couple other HNet folks were getting together with Jimmie that night. He looked at me and said, "You know what's good for a sunburn? Vinegar." I was in enough pain that I figured I'd try it. I bought a big gallon jug of vinegar, took it back to my hotel room. I got in the shower and poured it over myself, bodily. It...hurt. A lot. Now I was broiled and pickled, like a smoked sardine. I reeked of vinegar, the hotel room reeked of vinegar, and the hall outside my room, smelled like a pickle barrel. Rinsing off and then rinsing out the shower failed to get rid of the smell. I'm grateful DukesFest never returned to Bristol TN, because I doubt the Marriott would want to see me again. Then the was the first, fan-based DukesFest in Covington, GA, where I went in search of an authentic moonshine experience. Talk about a bad idea...oops, lookit the time. I have to work on a homepage update!

If you don't have tickets to Hazzard Homecoming yet...so what. You can buy them at the event, which is good news for last-minute planning! The event location is slightly different than the original Sperryville location of DukesFest, but not by much. Instead of being on Hwy 211, it's on Route 522. What's that mean locally? Well, if you're on 211, turn into the town of Sperryville itself to get on Route 522, and then keep going a little ways. The closest towns likely to have hotel rooms are Front Royal, Luray, and Culpeper. Luray was pretty much booked up last I checked. Front Royal had places open but they were higher $. Do some google searches and book a room now if you're pretty sure you're going. It's wise to pack a cooler with bottled water, soda, snacks. Hand sanitizer, bug repellent, and extra tissues for those unreliable porta-johns are all good ideas. Remember this event offers "festival seating"...which is to say, there ain't any. Bring your own milk can, bar stool, or patio furniture. If all else, roll up an old blanket and bring it along. Forecast thus far is chance of T-storms and highs in the mid 80's. It'll probably change by the weekend, but odds are it's gonna be hot/humid so plan accordingly. Did I mention bottled water? Better bring rain ponchos or light jackets just in case the weather breaks, though. There are no refunds on account of weather conditions. Now on to the fun stuff! Bring a camera. Bring a smile. Bring money! Remember ya need $15 minimum to get into the gate. (kids 10 and under free, adults over 65 free, active miliary with ID, free.) Expect autograph fees of anywhere from $5.00 on up, depending on the cast member and situation. If you buy an item from somebody's booth - say Rosco, for example - whatever you buy from him directly includes his autograph. But if you bring something up to him you brought from home, or purchased from somebody else's table, you'll probably pay at least $5.00. Not a big deal, really, but just be aware of that fact and plan accordingly. And it's not always possible to have the autographed personalized. Especially when lines are long. Again this varies by cast member, and how long the line is, ect. A good autograph strategy to keep in mind, is to purchase a photo that has more than one cast member on it - especially if the other cast member(s) are at the same event. For example, Cathy and Sonny will both be there. Sonny usually has a good Enos/Daisy photo. If you buy it from him, he'll sign it, then you can have Cathy sign it too. (perhaps for a nominal fee, but you got that by now.) Autograph lines for John and Cathy and Jimmy tend to be long. John is only there Sunday, and because of that, his line is probably going to have an extra wait. Plan your Saturday autographs around who you really want to see the most; get in that line first; then get in line for the next person on your gotta-see list. Cast members do their very best to try and give each fan a chance at meet n' greet. So long as you get there early, and you're patient, odds are you'll get to do most everything you want to do. Gates open at 9 am Saturday and 9:30 am Sunday. Note, HazzardNet is NOT officially connected with Hazzard Homecoming. The above info is provided as an FYI based upon our own prior volunteer experience with these shindigs. Travel safe, and have fun! We want to hear all about it when you're back.

I know MaryAnne has been looking for a pair of these - Daisy Duke Underoos! These are new in package, and crazy tough to find. Daisy Duke Underoos I'm seeing a some good, high-quality Dukes collectibles in ebay at the moment. If you're not in the market for undies, there's a Dukes of Hazzard tv tray that's also in mint condition and factory wrapped. The maddening thing with ebay is there can be total crap on there for weeks, and then if you stop watching it, suddenly there's good stuff again.

Hardly ever, anyway! Betweent the two of us, it averages out. Good thing, or Mufn would have sold this site years ago, and then where would we be?

Daney, why don't you post it here? I'm curious now. Did John have some beef with the Northeast Ohio Dukes show? Since we're an independent website, we can talk about these things without getting in trouble. So let 'er rip.

Fortunately we don't have a video of that particular event. And with Mufn's supplemental bribe - er, tip, to the waitstaff, I'm sure hardly anybody in Nashville remembers that rowdy table of 9. Let me give you some background. This was the pinnacle of all DukesFests. Full reunion of the surviving cast - Tom, John, Cathy, Ben, Jimmie, Sonny, and Rick. Jerry Rushing was there too. I'm sure there's others I'm leaving out, like stunt people, as an automotive stunt show was on the bill too. DukesFest was held at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds that year...and it wasn't...big...enough. 100,000 people streamed through the gates in a weekend. The cast members were in air-conditioned buildings but the autograph lines were out the doors and the buildings were full of people. The overcapacity was such that local fire n' safety inspector ordered the buildings to be temporarily shut down. This created more chaos. We had lost kids, families who'd gotten separated from each other, and fans who were sweltering outside. Yeah, I'd picked this DukesFest to volunteer. There were 5 of us from HNet on the volunteer staff that year, Mufn and I were two of them. I was assisting special-needs fans, helping lost kids, assisting security, carting around water bottles - anything and everything that needed doing that I could do. Just about when things couldn't get more nuts, John got sick from the catered lunch that was brought in, and was flat on his back, literally, on the cement floor, behind his autograph table. I remember Tom looking over with an expression like, "#$%&.". John's line backed up even longer. But to their credit, once fans understood that John wasn't feeling well, they were patient and courteous. One or two, like you'd get anywhere, were grumbling but anyone who got edgy was invited to wait patiently or leave. They usually chose the former. Another problem was a security guard who was letting people sneak into the building through a side door...for a price. A fan reported it to me. I watched the guy in question, and sure enough. He'd take a few bucks and let somebody sneak in. So that was another problem we had to take care of on the fly. There was no lunch break. Me and two HNet friends shared a bag of roasted almonds, gulped down on the run, and lived on those and a bottle of water each. We counted ourselves lucky. The concessions stand inside the main building was so overrun, it was putting hot dogs on the grill and taking them off so fast that they were still cold. Fans were so hungry they were eating them anyway. Then they ran out of hot dogs altogether. When it was all over that Saturday, after the concert and the stunt show with the 202-ft General Lee jump - the parking lot was bedlam. The HNet group pretty much elected to just sit in the parking lot and wait it out. By the time we got back to the hotel we were exhausted, starving, but happy. We celebrated our survival by getting together at the Cracker Barrel for a late dinner. And...ya know how when you're really, really tired, anything is funny, and funny beyond all reason? That's what happened. I was tired as heck and I was desperate for a good meal and then a few hours sleep. Man, I'd never needed food so bad in my life. But everything was funny. Two of our group got into a dispute over a tomato wedge in a salad. I found this hysterical. Val said something about hearing banjos when they crossed the state line, and I lost it. Then she lost it. The harder she laughed, the harder everybody else laughed, and we were roaring. I mean, we were just howling with glee over anything. I'd also discovered that my steak dinner came with nature's most perfect projectile - peas! I hate peas and I don't care who knows it. They were now ammo. *flick!* French fries were fired back at me. I had three or four bites of steak and then had to put my fork down because I was laughing so hard I couldn't eat. I was laughing so hard I had to cover my face with a napkin. A waitress came over at one point, and I think she asked Val what our jokes were since we were laughing so hard - and I think Val gave a squeak of hysteria and there we were again, howling. Mufn, to her credit, and one other HNet person, completely behaved at their end of the table while the rest of us had the place up for grabs. That's the story, as best as I can recollect. I do recall that I wasn't on my best professional behavior and I was glad I wasn't wearing an HNet t-shirt at the time. If anything I probably needed a straight jacket. Mufn wasn't real pleased but she forgave me eventually. (Now before anybody thinks DukesFest is badly organized - it's really not, it's just that ticket sales "at the gate" were huge thanks to local media picking up the event and running all over with it. The crowd estimate based on pre-sales was one thing, and reality was vastly another.)

And with your post, you just admitted you were sitting at the same table...a detail I was kindly leaving out. Guess I might as well tell the story. Later. I gotta do a homepage update for Fan of the Month first!

It was french fries. You had the guts to walk back in there after all that?

HazzardNet's Fan of the Month for August 2011 is CDoherty95! Congrats! There were several good contestants for this month. CDoherty95 was selected due to his perseverance in re-building another "General Lee" bicycle after his original creation was stolen. This shows great dedication to his love of "The Dukes of Hazzard" as well as strong personal character in not giving up. CDoherty95 is also an active participant in our Forums and has generated good discussions. We're pleased to recognize him as the Fan of the Month for his contributions to the Dukes of Hazzard fandom. SAL-UTE!

I'd tell you the story, but I'd have to incriminate several members of HNet. Not to say names, but people like Val, Pendragon, L_ostSheep3, LukasKD and notable others, to unmentionable to list. Maybe I'll tell it tomorrow.

Get ready to call him the "25 Million Dollar Sheriff." James Best is suing Time-Warner/Warner Bros over unpaid royalties. Best claims he was owed 5% of all Dukes of Hazzard merchandising revenue for stuff that contained Sheriff Rosco likeness. By his estimates/his attorney's estimates, that could have been 5 to 25 million during the Dukes heyday alone. Best has actually collected something around $175,000 for this stuff in the last 30 years. I'm working on an HNet homepage update and will supply more details there, but that's the meat n' potatoes of it!

You're welcome, Redneck Girl! The Hillside is a great little place, sorry they were booked up for Saturday. I do recommend staying there Sunday night and thereafter if you have plans to stick around the area. The Hillside has "green space" unlike a lot of other Concrete Inns. It's nice to pitch a lawnchair and relax, or cook on the grill, ect. The folks who own it are everyday people and very hospitable. It's worth making time for a scenic road trip around Skyline Drive. You can explore some of the Shenandoah National Park. There are plenty of "pull over and take a picture" spots. Skyline Drive - Blueridge Mountains You might also be interested in the Luray Caverns. About the whole Yankee/Dukes thing: I was probaby one of the few people in the area NOT wearing an orange shirt with an "01" on it, during the DukesFests in Sperryville. (Nothing against it, I just look horrible in arnge...er, orange.) Anyway, while at the cafe in Sperryville and at the Brookside Restaurant in Luray, I was able to blend in more with the locals. I wasn't driving a 69 Charger, I was not wearing orange, and I can manage a decent drawl as a survival skill. So the waitresses and locals would complain in my presence and not worry about it. They didnt' say anything really bad, but here's what they didn't like: 1. Dukes of Hazzard people descending upon the restaurant all at the same time, like a hoarde of Mongols, and all wanting to sit together, and be served food within 10 minutes. (it takes them 10 minutes to bring you a menu in these places...10 more to actually take your order, another 5 to mosey it into the kitchen and then 20 to bring it to your table.) 2.Yankees being "loud." Loud voices, loud cars, loud clothing, loud music. ( say what? can't hear you over there on the far end of the table...) 3. Dukes fans/Yankees being lousy tippers. ( we can't tip, we need all our money for gas, car parts, and Dukes of Hazzard collectibles. Yeehaaw!) You can win them over by allowing plenty of time for enjoying your meal, getting everywhere you need to be EARLY, being courteous to other patrons, and remembering to tip. The vast majority of Dukes fans are as courteous and well-mannered as Bo and Luke themselves, but of course it just takes a few yodel-heads to bring down our good name. Like that time we were all at the Cracker Barrel in Nashville and nearly got kicked out, but that's another story.

Thanks to all who provided us the reports. I've updated the homepage. The news comes as a shock and it's a sad day for Dukes fans. If anyone has more information about what happened, please feel welcome to post.

Gotta add something else here. Thinking back...I've helped out at many events, and I've only missed a couple DukesFests. I've been to other cast appearance shindigs all over the place. Car shows, you name it. The coolest part of them all, was meeting other Dukes of Hazzard fans I'd only known through the internet up to those points. Every one of them felt like family. That's truly the best part of Hazzard Homecoming or anything else. You can go for the General Lees, or the cast appearances and autographs, but at the end of it all, what you're really going to remember is having thousands of other crazy Dukes of Hazzard fans to whoop it up with. You'll remember meeting up with your friends and making even more friends. Take lots, and lots, of pictures ya'll....these are the moments you can't replace.

It's actually the Page Valley fair, located in Luray, but this year it runs Aug 20 thru 27, so it's not on during Hazzard Homecoming. Ya know, thinking back to how rowdy some Dukes fans were in Luray (not naming names...Mufn!) it's no wonder that Yankees/Dukes of Hazzard fans weren't always embraced by some of the locals. Though I imagine they might really appreciate the business this time around. Fun times back then. I had a blast riding around in Paul Harrington's Hazzard County cop car. He had the gonads to pull right into the Luray police station with it, like "Look what I made!" and this local cops looked at him like "What is this?" But the local fuzz were good sports.