Goodbye 2012

 Every New Year's I post the notable deaths of the year. Usually I'd post pictures with them, but unfortunately I've discovered that I can't really do that ... copyright and such. So here's the list ... of course it doesn't include everyone and there may be some you don't recognize but you can view the full list here.

In alphabetical order:

Richard Arlen                                                                         Whitney Houston

Neil Armstrong                                                                       John Ingle

Maeve Binchy                                                                         Senator Daniel Inouye

Ernest Borgnine                                                                      Davy Jones

Robert Bork                                                                            Kathryn Joosten

Ray Bradbury                                                                         Rodney King

Helen Gurley Brown                                                                Thomas Kinkade

Dave Brubeck                                                                         Jack Klugman

Frank Cady                                                                             Jon Lord

Hector “Macho” Camacho                                                      Tony Martin

Dick Clark                                                                              George McGovern

Gary Collins                                                                            Dorothy McGuire

Don Cornelius                                                                         Rev. Sun Myrung Moon

Stephen R. Covey                                                                   LeRoy Neiman

Judith Crist                                                                              Jerry Nelson

Hal David                                                                               Ron Palillo

Richard Dawson                                                                     Deborah Raffin

Phyllis Diller                                                                            Sally Ride

Michael Clarke Duncan                                                          Ann Rutherford

Charles Durning                                                                      Steve Sabol

Chad Everett                                                                          Vidal Sassoon

Al Freeman Jr.                                                                        Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf

Robin Gibb                                                                             Tony Scott

Art Ginsburg                                                                           Earl Scruggs

Don Grady                                                                             Maurice Sendak

Andy Griffith                                                                           Arlen Specter

Larry Hagman                                                                         Donna Summer

Marvin Hamlisch                                                                     Gore Vidal

Levon Helm                                                                            Bob Welch

Sherman Hemsley                                                                   Kitty Wells

Celeste Holm                                                                          Andy Williams

Goodbye .. 2011

You know I do this every year, or at least I used to, once upon a blogger.  So, on this New Year's Eve, I'll do it once more.  Goodbye to some of the notables we lost in 2011.  In no certain order:

Harry Morgan

Alan Sues (Laugh-In) 

Bil Keane (Family Circus)

Andy Rooney

Roger Williams

Steve Jobs
Cliff Robertson
Nick Ashford

Bubba Smith
Dan Peek

Amy Winehouse
Sherwood Schwartz









Betty Ford
Peter Falk
Carl Gardner



James Arness
Dr. Jack Kevorkian
Jeff Conaway
Randy Savage
Jackie Cooper
Phoebe Snow



Geraldine Ferraro
Elizabeth Taylor
Jane Russell
Betty Garrett
Brian Jacques

Jack LaLanne
David Nelson
Margaret Whiting

And so it continues .....

Mary Travers, 71, of the folk group Peter, Paul & Mary has passed away after a long battle with leukemia. Who doesn't know the song "Puff the Magic Dragon"? Their harmony can never be reproduced.









And Henry Gibson, known for his poems on the 60s series "Laugh-In", has passed away at the age of 73. He recently had a recurring role on "Boston Legal" as a judge. Mommie always knew she was in for a laugh when he would walk out on the "Laugh-In" stage, a flower in his hands, and announce "A Poem, by Henry Gibson".

Such a Loss

With all of the talk today about Kanye West and his asinine antics, a true gentleman slipped out of our lives. I tried to find my favorite scene from "Dirty Dancing", but every one of them had embedding disabled. So the only thing I can do is post the link to the clip.

Patrick Swayze at his finest - so virile, vibrant. He will be missed.

Patrick Swayze
1952 - 2009

And please don't forget the post below and vote every day. Thank you.

Did You Know?

A great writer died this weekend and you probably heard nothing about it. Maybe because he wasn't Louis L'Amour, but the Western Writers of America voted him Best Western Author of All Time. Still, not one word on the news, not an obituary alert from CNN (yes, I get obituary alerts, so sue me).



Four of his books won the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. The aforementioned Western Writers of America awarded him their Spur Award 7 times. Four of his books won the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. In 1987 he received the Barbara McCombs/Lon Tinkle Award for “continuing excellence in Texas letters” from the Texas Institute of Letters. Yes, he was born in Texas and lived here his entire life, and yet not one local news channel commented on his death.



You probably never even knew that one of his books "The Good Old Boys" was made into a TV movie starring Tommy Lee Jones.



His name? Elmer Kelton. While there are more Louis L'Amour books in our store than any other western writer, it's Kelton's books that are rare - when they come in, they go out quickly. He is in high demand.



“His contribution to literature in this state cannot be underestimated,” Judy Alter, former director of the TCU Press, said. “Elmer didn’t write the traditional western; he wrote history."



Kelton had 62 fiction and non-fiction books to his credit.



Four of his books won the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.



The German Association for the Study of the Western, based in Muenster, Germany, made him an honorary member. The association presents the Elmer Kelton Award for Literary Merit every year.



He earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin. He was a true Texan, and except for the years he spent overseas in WWII, his whole life was spent here.



Yes, a great writer died last weekend ....




April 29, 1926 - August 22, 2009 “One thing is certain: as long as there are writers as skillful as Elmer Kelton, Western literature will never die.”

And that's the way .... it will never be again

1916 - 2009

There are only a few people outside of my family that have seemed to be there my entire life. Walter Cronkite was one of them. I can’t say that I’ve thought about him a lot, probably couldn’t tell you when I last saw him. And yet, his death hit me hard – I actually cried. Uncle Walt was an institution on his own – a constant presence in the backdrop of this nation. Almost every great event in my lifetime has been marked with his presence: JFK’s assassination, as well as Martin Luther King; the moon landing; 9/11 – whether through commentating or reporting, Walter Cronkite was there. Now no more.

Bebo and I talked about it the other day. There is no one in today’s news field that we would trust as much as America trusted him. No one has ever really stepped into his shoes – they were too large to fill. Many polls throughout the years have listed Walter Cronkite as the most trusted person in America. Cronkite has been described as a real gentleman, a bit of a comedian, a humanitarian … as well as a devoted husband and father. I think we could add friend to that list.

We’re going to miss you Uncle Walter …. more than we thought we would.

And three to go ....

And no, that's not a pun.

There are days that you’ll remember, maybe not your entire life, but at least for a while. Thursday was one of those days. Not a lot of things can make me feel old, but the death of two icons of my teen years is one of them.

I was never a big fan of Farrah Fawcett. Oh, I didn’t dislike her, just sort of “blah”. I followed her career/life in a periphery fashion, the little boxes next to the big story. But her fight against cancer caught my eye, and my heart. I don’t think there is anyone who hasn’t lost someone to cancer. And I’m not saying that your/my loved ones didn’t fight. But here was this always fragile looking woman saying “no, I’m not going” and giving her all in the fight. I grew to admire her strength and her determination. But, as often is the case, you can’t always beat that particular devil, no matter how strong you are.



And then there was Michael. I’m going to refer to the Michael Jackson of my teen and early 20s, not the bizarre figure he became in his later years. I was a Donny Osmond fanactic! But you couldn’t ignore the other family that dominated the preteen airwaves – the Jackson Five. And there was Michael, soul’s version of Donny, and I might add the better performer. You kind of knew that he was going places. Not that Donny didn’t, but wholesome Pat Booneism will only take you so far. No, Michael became the bigger star, culminating in his iconic “Thriller” album – which I think I might still have somewhere. Michael Jackson will have a place in entertainment history – and should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame some day.

But I said three in the title. Ed McMahon didn’t make the big headlines that Farrah and Michael did when he passed less than a week before them. He’s most known for a phrase “Heeeerrrrreeee’s Johnny”, and yet his presence in our lives also made it’s mark. Few remember he was the host of “Star Search”, and that stars such as Sawyer Brown, Britney Spears, Brad Garrett, Drew Carey got their start on the show. Publisher’s Clearing House spokesman, as well as other commercials. Yes, Ed McMahon made his mark too, probably not as big of one as the other two, but a mark nonetheless.

My own goodbye

Yesterday I listed those "notables" that the world had lost in 2008.


Today it's my own personal losses of 2008 that I say goodbye to, so here they are.


My mother's sister Alice O'Connell Proudfit

July 2, 1923 - June 18, 2008
(mom on the left, Alice on the right)



My father's brother Robert Charles Mardis

July 30, 1915 - December 15, 2008




My mother's brother Thomas Elmo O'Connell

February 14, 1921 - December 29, 2008

Each of you in your own way contributed to who I am today. You will be missed.

I'll see everyone on Monday. Have a great weekend!!

In Memoriam 2008

Yeah, techinically the year ended yesterday. Okay, not technically, it did end yesterday, but I'm taking the week, got it? Anyway, today is where I list those "notables" that we have lost throughout this past year. I know, how do you decide who to include? I take the top names, or ones that mean something to me, or I throw their names on the floor and wait until Bubba sits on one ... I just do, okay?

So here is my list, in no particular order - except maybe the order of the place I copied them from.

Eartha Kitt - Singer/actress - not as Santa Baby siren, but as I will always remember her - Catwoman.

Bernie Mac - actor

Michael DeBakey - Doctor - his innovations in medicine and science led to making open-heart surgeries a possibility. Without this procedure I would not have had my father, brother Howard or a few other members of my family with me for as long as I did.

Margaret Truman Daniel - author

Cyd Charisse - actress/dancer

Yves St. Laurent - designer

Paul Scofield - actor

Sydney Pollack - director/actor

Tim Russert - News host

Arthur C. Clarke - author

Heath Ledger - actor

Michael Crichton - author

Charlton Heston - actor
Estelle Getty - actress

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - author

Sir Edmund Hillary - explorer

George Carlin - comedian/actor

Bo Diddley - singer

Isaac Hayes - singer/actor

Paul Newman - actor

Larry Harmon - TV's first Bozo the clown

Roy Scheider - actor

In Memoriam

So I was going to blog about the Oscars, but realized that I didn't know a lot about any of the movies nominated this year. I'm still going to watch it, because I'm an Oscar freak. George Clooney is nominated, but I've heard that the probable winner will be Daniel Day Lewis, darnit. One of my favorite parts of the show is the memoriam to those actors/actresses who have died in the past Oscar year (March 2007 thru February 2008). Don't ask me why - I've always been a celebrity obituary gal. Morbid, I know. My family calls me the obit lady. I've been called worse. Anway, here is my own personal in memoriam - because of space limitations I could only include the most famous ones. I'll be watching closely tonight to see who they leave out. I'm like that. I once wrote the Academy an email in protest because they left someone off of the list. Oscar Geek alert! So, will you/did you watch the Oscars?


Betty Hutton


Charles Nelson Reilly


Jane Wyman


Deborah Kerr


Robert Goulet


Brad Renfro


Suzanne Pleshette


Heath Ledger


Roy Scheider