Eddie Hilliard

I will let Nori explain who Eddie Hilliard was:

Eddie was an old family friend of my parents [Bill Muster and Paula Runge Muster]. They met him in Chicago in the 1950s, then ran into him in L.A. My dad and Eddie remained friends through life, even though they were competitive toward each other and usually not on good terms. Eddie worked at my dad’s office on Santa Monica Boulevard marketing my dad’s book, Traveler’s Almanac. Ed was extremely successful, selling cartons of the book to banks. He convinced banks to give the book away to people who opened a savings account to save up for some world travel. Ed’s idea caught on and the book went into several editions. But my dad had to fire Eddie because he wouldn’t stop smoking pot in Dad’s office. My dad loved pot, but it was highly illegal at the time and he just didn’t know what to do.

After my father died, I drove out to the desert where Eddie was living and recorded six hours of tapes with him. He died some years ago and I’ve been meaning to put the transcripts of those tapes on the Internet. I will need to look around for those tapes. Not sure if I still have them, or what happened to them. Sadly, because of my influence, Eddie Junior joined the Hare Krishna temple. He came to my door at the L.A. temple one time and said, “Hi! I’m Eddie Hilliard.” I said, “No you’re not. You’re too young to be Eddie Hilliard.” The kid moved to Hawaii about twenty years ago and lives in the forest and has become very eccentric. Every once in a while, I hear from him.

Eddie Hilliard Sr. died in the 1990s or 00s. In the 1950s Eddie was a standup comedian and used to tell the Aristocrat joke, according to what my mom tells me. Also, in the 1950s he had a circus with an elephant and pony rides. My family said I loved to ride the ponies and they have a photo of me on one of the horses.