Monday, July 16, 2012

A busy weekend for death

Time for another round of what fellow blogger Ivan Shreve calls, "the passings parade", but before we do that, let's take a look at some hometown news.

In Albany, one of the city's popular tourist attractions, the Aqua Ducks, which travels on land and sea, ended an 8 year run on Sunday. The vehicles are, as we speak, en route to their "retirement" destination in Key West, Florida, having been sold recently. Declining business due to the economics of today would be the only reason this decision was made.

Now, on to the obituaries.

Author Steven Covey passed away over the weekend at 79 due to injuries sustained in a bicycle accident in April. Covey's best known book is The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, but Covey was also known as a respected motivational speaker.

Oscar winning actress Celeste Holm left us at 95. Her passing earned a rightfully large write-up in today's New York Daily News, but other papers may have given her less space for editorial reasons.

Donald J. Sobel introduced readers to a juvenile crimestopper 49 years ago, and 80 books later, Encyclopedia Brown may be solving his last cases. Sobel's 80th book, Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Soccer Schemers, is due later this year. According to Yahoo!, there had been some interest in Hollywood in adapting the long running book series into a feature film, but despite the support of stars such as Chevy Chase and Anthony Hopkins, it hasn't happened yet. There was, however, an Encyclopedia Brown series that aired on HBO a number of years back. Sobel was 87.

Finally, it was reported within the last hour that country music pioneer Kitty Wells had passed on at the age of 92. Wells' biggest hit came in 1952 with "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels". Manbehindthescreen1 uploaded this video to YouTube:



Farewell, then, to the Ducks, and to the others we say, rest in peace.

2 comments:

magicdog said...

I remember the Encyclopedia Brown strip that ran in our sunday paper back in the late 70s & 80s. The reader was challenged to figure out the clues (given in plain sight) to understand how Brown got to his conclusion.

Definitely a big loss with Kitty Wells. Perhaps now they'll be able to make Honkey Tonk Angels in Heaven now.

Celeste Holm was a great and underrated actress. I think she garnered more appreciation on the stage, but she did well with screen roles in "Gentleman's Agreement" & "High Society"

hobbyfan said...

I read some of the early Brown books in school many times over. I have to admit he was one of the reasons I wanted to take a chance on a career in law enforcement, but I never made it to college, so those aspirations went out the door.

I remember the newspaper strip, too. It was drawn by the underrated Frank Bolle, and one of the best strips on the planet at the time.