My junior and senior years in high school, I was Philip Barbour’s computer lab manager during the lunch period. (Well, that’s what my class period overlapped with.) The computer lab consisted of about fifteen TRS-80 Model IIIs or Model IVs, some Epson PC-XT compatible computers with monochrome monitors, a couple of flywheel printers, and twoContinue reading “On Paul Harvey”
Tag Archives: obituary
On Joan Winston
Joanie Winston passed away earlier this week. It seems strange to me that I’m referring to her as “Joanie,” but that was how she introduced herself to me at Shore Leave a few years ago, and even though she was a decade shy of my grandmother’s age, she’ll always be, in my mind, Joanie. JoanContinue reading “On Joan Winston”
On Bernie Mac
Actor Bernie Mac passed away earlier today, apparently of pneumonia. He was fifty years old. To be honest, I wasn’t that familiar with Mac’s work. I loved his performance in Bad Santa as the head of security for a Phoenix department store. If I caught a bit of The Bernie Mac Show, the sitcom heContinue reading “On Bernie Mac”
On Jesse Helms
Former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms died this morning. And as it’s bad form to speak ill of the dead, I’ll leave it at that.
On Arthur C. Clarke and Anthony Minghella
Two deaths in the past twenty-four hours to report. Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001, Rendezvous With Rama, and a wealth of other science fiction, has died at his home in Sri Lanka. He was 90. I read a great deal of Clarke’s science fiction when I was younger. 2010 was amazing. I liked ImperialContinue reading “On Arthur C. Clarke and Anthony Minghella”
On Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer, the American chess prodigy and grandmaster, has died in Reykjavik, Iceland. He was sixty-four. Fischer is perhaps better known today for his… eccentricities. That’s probably the most polite word I can think of. That old Buffalo Springfield lyric comes quickly to mind — “Paranoia strikes deep / Into your life it will creep.”Continue reading “On Bobby Fischer”
On Dan Fogelberg
Singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg has passed away. Prostate cancer. He was fifty-six. I’m not sure that I knew Fogelberg’s music, outside of “Same Old Lang Syne.” I first heard that song on the radio, about this time of year, about twelve years ago. It was a sad, wistful song, the story of a man who meetsContinue reading “On Dan Fogelberg”
On Luciano Pavarotti
On a sad note, famed Opera singer Luciano Pavarotti passed away yesterday from pancreatic cancer. He was seventy-one.
On Mike Wieringo
Comic book artist Mike Wieringo died suddenly over the weekend. He was 44. Wieringo and I shared a birthday — June 24th. Not something I knew until today. Jack Dempsey, I knew that one. But not Mike Wieringo. I was familiar with Wieringo’s work only glancingly. I’d stopped reading The Flash not long before WieringoContinue reading “On Mike Wieringo”
On John Gardner
The novelist John Gardner, author of the James Bond novels of the ’80s and ’90s and two novels about Professor Moriarty, passed away about a week ago, on August 3rd. He was 80. Apparently, he had been in ill-health for about a year, suffering a mild stroke earlier in the year. I wouldn’t call GardnerContinue reading “On John Gardner”