Unlimited Dead People; R.I.P

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Spruce Creek, PA. I believe.

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  A couple of my shots from the Ford / Carter Third Presidential debate 1976

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Bob Uecker, announcer who was the comic bard of baseball, dies at 90
He had a mediocre career as a player, but found fame as a comic actor and Hall of Fame broadcaster.

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Garth Hudson, keyboardist in the Band, dies at 87
An architect of the Band's roots rock sound, he was the last surviving member of the group's classic lineup.

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I read The Hobbit in the early 70s, and followed up with The Tord of the Rimgs trilogy while convalescing with a broken femur. I later learned that Tolkien served in the British Army and was at the infamous battle of the Somme and witnessed the horrors of that bloody conflict which is reflected in his writings.


Overlooked No More: Karen Wynn Fonstad, Who Mapped Tolkien's Middle-earth
She was a novice cartographer who landed a dream assignment: to create an atlas of the setting of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings."



In 1977, Karen Wynn Fonstad made a long shot cold call to J.R.R. Tolkien's American publisher with the hope of landing a dream assignment: to create an exhaustive atlas of Middle-earth, the setting of the author's widely popular "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings."

To her surprise, an editor agreed.

Fonstad spent two and a half years on the project, reading through the novels line by line and painstakingly indexing any text from which she could infer geographic details. With two young children at home, she mostly worked at night. Her husband left notes on her drafting table reminding her to go to bed.

Her resulting book, "The Atlas of Middle-earth" (1981), wowed Tolkien fans and scholars with its exquisite level of topographic detail; the most recent paperback edition is in its 32nd printing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/obituaries/karen-wynn-fonstad-overlooked.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rk4.cnco.AHFmOZVvrwm8&smid=url-share

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Not in the pacific, but notable non the less for his service in WWII

Harry Stewart Jr., decorated Tuskegee Airmen combat pilot, dies at 100
He flew 43 missions over Europe during World War II but later could not find work as a commercial pilot because of discriminatory practices.



Harry Stewart Jr., who flew 43 missions over Europe as a fighter pilot and was among the last surviving combat veterans of the Tuskegee Airmen, an all-Black squadron in the segregated U.S. military during World War II, died Feb. 2 at his home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He was 100.

Philip Handleman, an aviation writer and the co-author of Mr. Stewart's 2019 memoir, "Soaring to Glory: A Tuskegee Airman's Firsthand Account of World War II," confirmed the death but did not know the specific cause.

Brian R. Smith, president of the Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum in Detroit, said Mr. Stewart was the last of two surviving Tuskegee combat pilots, leaving just George Hardy, who is 99. There are about 20 surviving Tuskegee Airmen, Smith said.

Mr. Stewart described himself as awed since his childhood in Queens, by the airplanes that would rumble over his home, which was on the flight path to what is now LaGuardia Airport. He joined the Army Air Forces at 18 and earned his wings the next year at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, long before he learned how to drive a car.

https://wapo.st/4jPTTLH

[jwgnc]

It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

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Tom Robbins, Whose Comic Novels Drew a Cult Following, Dies at 92
He blended pop philosophy and absurdist comedy in best-selling books like "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" and "Skinny Legs and All."

Tom Robbins, whose cosmically comic novels about gargantuan-thumbed hitchhikers, stoned secret agents and mystic stockbrokers caught hold of millions of readers in the 1970s counterculture, died on Sunday at his home in La Conner, Wash. He was 92.

His son Fleetwood confirmed the death but did not cite a cause.

Alongside works by Carlos Castaneda, Richard Brautigan and Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins paperbacks, dog-eared and torn, were common sights on the bookshelves and bedside milk crates of the late hippie era, between the tail end of the Vietnam War and the rise of Ronald Reagan's America. He became one of the rare writers to achieve both a cult following and mega-best-seller status.

With their meandering plots, pop-philosophical asides and frequent jabs at social convention and organized religion, Mr. Robbins's books were the perfect accompaniment to acid trips, Grateful Dead shows and weekend yoga retreats, long before those things became middle-class and mainstream.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/09/obituaries/tom-robins-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.v04.Lc8z.uaMJY7UTP4KF&smid=url-share

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Gee, I didn't put this guy in the Castaneda category. Maybe death was at his shoulder too?  Who knew? 

TB

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David Edward Byrd, Whose Posters Captured Rock's Energy, Dies at 83
His designs for Jimi Hendrix, the Who and others embodied the spirit of the psychedelic era. He also created images for stage shows like "Godspell."



David Edward Byrd, who captured the swirl and energy of the 1960s and early '70s by conjuring pinwheels of color with indelible posters for concerts by Jimi Hendrix, the Who and the Rolling Stones as well as for hit stage musicals like "Follies" and "Godspell," died on Feb. 3 in Albuquerque. He was 83.

His husband and only immediate survivor, Jolino Beserra, said the cause of death, in a hospital, was pneumonia brought on by lung damage from Covid.

Mr. Byrd made his name, starting in 1968, with striking posters for the likes of Jefferson Airplane and Traffic at the Fillmore East, the Lower Manhattan Valhalla of rock operated by the powerhouse promoter Bill Graham.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/arts/design/david-edward-byrd-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.wk4.-pAE.nieuw3BHevjX&smid=url-share

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Marian Turski, Holocaust survivor who warned against silence, dies at 98
Mr. Turski, a Polish journalist who survived Auschwitz as a teenager, urged the world not to be indifferent to the persecution of minorities.

Marian Turski, a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz and two death marches as a teenager and later became a resolute memory-keeper and journalist, gathering testimony from other Holocaust survivors while warning younger generations against silence and indifference, died Feb. 18 at his home in Warsaw. He was 98.

A spokesman for the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which Mr. Turski co-founded in Warsaw, confirmed the death but did not cite a cause.

For decades, Mr. Turski was among Poland's most prominent living Holocaust survivors, recounting his story — and those of other Polish Jews he interviewed — while speaking out against hate and reminding the world of the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators.

Only three weeks before his death, he returned to Auschwitz to address world leaders and European royals at a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the camp's liberation. "We have always been a tiny minority," he said, referring to his fellow survivors. "And now only a handful remain."



Mr. Turski, who warned in his speech against "a huge rise in antisemitism," spent years waging a battle against historical amnesia. He said he felt a duty to confront neo-Nazis, including some he said he encountered at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in the 1960s, and to combat historical lies and revisionism, notably through an open letter he wrote to Mark Zuckerberg in 2020, urging the Facebook chief executive to ban Holocaust denial from his social media platform.


https://wapo.st/4b9w3Xn

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Jerry Butler - "The Ice Man Cometh" no more

Jerry Butler Jr. was an American soul singer-songwriter, producer, musician and politician. He was the original lead singer of the R&B vocal group the Impressions, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.


https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/arts/music/jerry-butler-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zE4.QThO.RVRhjTKBnpTl&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

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Gene Hackman, actor who dazzled in spectrum of Everyman roles, dies at 95
He twice won Oscars for bringing humanizing depth to corrupt lawmen, from the raging cop in "The French Connection" to the ruthless sheriff in "Unforgiven."

Gene Hackman, an actor who powerfully embodied ordinary men under stress in dozens of films and twice won Oscars for bringing humanizing depth to corrupt lawmen, from the raging cop in "The French Connection" to the ruthless sheriff in "Unforgiven," was found dead Feb. 26 along with his wife at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was 95.

Mr. Hackman and Betsy Arakawa's cause of death was not yet known, but the local sheriff's office said in a news release that there were no signs of foul play. Officers suspected that Mr. Hackman may have "suddenly fallen," according to an affidavit obtained by The Washington Post.

A 6-foot-2 former Marine, Mr. Hackman was an imposing man with a curly nimbus of receding hair and a jowly potato face that he called "your everyday mine worker's mug." He was peerless at conveying frustration and throttled rage, but he showed glimmers of romantic warmth and a deft, if underused, comic flair. His onetime director and three-time co-star Warren Beatty praised his "broad spectrum of gifts, a combination of sensitivity and toughness."

https://wapo.st/3XoOcuB

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Rumble In The Jungle

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/boxing/2025/03/21/george-foreman-dies-former-heavyweight-boxing-champion/82605166007/You cannot view this attachment.

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GF has a Forman Grill!