There she is, all grown up.

If you ever thought, "That Pete Phillips, he's not one to kiss and tell," then you'd be right, but sometimes you just can't hold some things in and you have to just say what has been done. Perhaps it's the desire to flaunt, or the passion of love that makes you talk, or maybe it's just all you have to say at the moment. But sometimes you're legally bound by a Hollywood contractto keep quiet for at least eight years, and you need to break the silence after holding it in for so long.

I'm sure you're all sitting there, gripped with anticipation as to what exactly I'm talking about, but I want to lead you on just a bit longer. There was a little show from a while back that was about the merging of two quite different families to make one unique little household. The show was successful for its run (1991-98), but it was also a very trying period for me.

A lot of people don't understand my contempt for the state known as Pennsylvania. I don't mind it much anymore, but in the beginning, my dislike was obvious. I usually accredited it to the drivers taking over my homeland of South Jersey for the Summer, which was partly true. In reality, it was one of those bad drivers who changed my life forever back in the mid-nineties.

It was a nice summer in 1996. I was proud to be a teenager (13) and I was ready to try my hand at the ladies. Who knew what would be in store for me? I hit the beach and came across a woman who was on vacation from her native Devon, Pennsylvania. Her name was Staci Keanan and I didn't recognize her right away, without all the make-up and such. After a chance encounter involving an Icee and stained clothes, we ended up spending the day together. Being 13, maybe it's not fair to call it love, but as far as I had known at the time, I fell in love with Staci. When I expressed my feelings on a Jersey beach as the sun set over the ocean, she explained that she was eight years older than me, and that laws, in addition to good social taste, prohibited our union-- but she had a friend that would be perfect for me.

The next day, Staci flew me out to Hollywood, where she worked as an actress. I was escorted to the stage that she worked on and I didn't know exactly what to expect. I mean my uncle Lou worked on movies, so it was no big shell-shock, but I didn't really know who Staci was, so I pressed on with courage. I walked into a kitchen with a table on one end and a staircase leading out the back. A back door sat in the middle of one wall and a counter took up the rest of the kitchen. Except there was a door on each end opposite wall. One led to the living area and the other led to a salon. I was on Step by Step's set, and Staci was Dana, the uppity sister with an attitude problem.

She pulled me off to the side and introduced me to another star of the show, Patrick Duffy! Then she pulled me to another side and introduced me to Christine Lakin, who played the tom-boy-ish "Al" on the show. Staci said that she was closer to my age and she needed a boy to treat her right. Christine and I hit it off right away with our talk of baseball, but something told me that she just knew about baseball for the job. I told her that her mom could drive us to the movies later if she wanted. Sure enough, she accepted. I have to say, Kazaam wasn't the best choice for a first date, but she pretended it was fun.

We spent weeks together before my mom contracted a mercenary to come and get me. Christine was a great girl and she was the type that every guy would dream of. She knew what stuff to buy, and even how to get Shaquille O'Neal to dress up like a genie and serve us dinner for our anniversary. But alas, crude statistics from the Savannah College of Art & Design do show that 90% of all long distance relationships end within a year. While Christine and I did manage to beat that record by a few months, we ended up having to call it quits. I have to say that it was truly a friendly break-up. We both knew that cross-country just couldn't make it. The distance was one thing, but we were both having a hard time fighting off the opposite sex. We were truly a sexy couple.

Anyway, Christine and I talk on the phone about two or three times a year and I have to say that it's always good to hear what she's up to. She's a glutton for hip underground indie projects (Reefer Madness, Lost in Oz), but more often she has to take a stinker for a paycheck (Boltneck, Big Monster On Campus, Going Down). But in the end, it doesn't really matter what kind of movie she makes, she's still an all around great lady, and she'll always have a special place in my heart.