Fr @VictoriaYeage11 It is w/ profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET. An incredible life well lived, America’s greatest Pilot, & a legacy of strength, adventure, & patriotism will be remembered forever.
— Chuck Yeager (@GenChuckYeager) December 8, 2020
Showing posts with label RIP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RIP. Show all posts
Monday, December 7, 2020
Taps
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Damnit, 2016!
Just had to get one last shot in: William Christopher, Father Mulcahy on ‘M*A*S*H,’ Dies at 84 - The New York Times
William Christopher on IMDb.
William Christopher on IMDb.
Sunday, May 29, 2016
"My Buddy"
Once again, Memorial Day is not about those of us who made it home, it's about those who "Gave Their All."
It's never said so in the song, but the assumption from the day it was released is that it was for a friend who never made it back from "Over There."
Lyrics are found here.
I'd never heard this version before. It may be a bit of a change from what most expect from Jerry Jeff Walker, and I think my buddy George would have liked it. There was really no reason for us to hit it off as well as we did, other than a mutual interest in guns and hunting. And Science Fiction. And a shared distrust of authority, which I suppose seems odd to those who never served, in a couple of NCO's.
But we did, and I always had a couch to sleep on if I needed to get away from the barracks, even if I needed to drive 800 miles to do it. (Long weekends. Great things, but don't tell the Army I drove that far in a night...)
Like me, George served overseas several times, but never saw combat except for on TV.
Somewhere I read that a high percentage of military, police, and fire/rescue retirees die about a year after retirement. That was the case for George; one night he stood up and then hit the floor.
Pat, his wife, told me later that when she was filing for survivor benefits the person from the VA took one look at his retirement physical and upgraded him retroactively to 100% disabled. She also told me that he kept getting a job, and then waking out when they told him he had to join a union. He figured if he joined a union that would mean two bosses, which was at least one too many.
Eventually I lost contact with Pat and her kids. She went her way, and put her life back together. This being before cell phones, the Internet, and social media, keeping in touch meant expensive long distance bills or actually writing a letter and mailing it, and the Army was keeping me pretty busy then; even when I moved back to within a hundred miles of where they were, I met the future Mrs. Drang and was otherwise occupied.
Speaking of upgrading George's disability, this is the other sing I usually play on Memorial and Veteran's Days:
Hey don't ya remember...?
It's never said so in the song, but the assumption from the day it was released is that it was for a friend who never made it back from "Over There."
Lyrics are found here.
I'd never heard this version before. It may be a bit of a change from what most expect from Jerry Jeff Walker, and I think my buddy George would have liked it. There was really no reason for us to hit it off as well as we did, other than a mutual interest in guns and hunting. And Science Fiction. And a shared distrust of authority, which I suppose seems odd to those who never served, in a couple of NCO's.
But we did, and I always had a couch to sleep on if I needed to get away from the barracks, even if I needed to drive 800 miles to do it. (Long weekends. Great things, but don't tell the Army I drove that far in a night...)
Like me, George served overseas several times, but never saw combat except for on TV.
Somewhere I read that a high percentage of military, police, and fire/rescue retirees die about a year after retirement. That was the case for George; one night he stood up and then hit the floor.
Pat, his wife, told me later that when she was filing for survivor benefits the person from the VA took one look at his retirement physical and upgraded him retroactively to 100% disabled. She also told me that he kept getting a job, and then waking out when they told him he had to join a union. He figured if he joined a union that would mean two bosses, which was at least one too many.
Eventually I lost contact with Pat and her kids. She went her way, and put her life back together. This being before cell phones, the Internet, and social media, keeping in touch meant expensive long distance bills or actually writing a letter and mailing it, and the Army was keeping me pretty busy then; even when I moved back to within a hundred miles of where they were, I met the future Mrs. Drang and was otherwise occupied.
Speaking of upgrading George's disability, this is the other sing I usually play on Memorial and Veteran's Days:
Hey don't ya remember...?
Friday, January 15, 2016
Stolen
Blatantly.
I mean, I was never a huge Bowie fan, but that doesn't mean I never enjoyed any of his music, or movies, and I am certainly aware of his contributions to rock music.
Alan Rickman, OTOH, is probably my favorite Bad Guy. Die Hard. (Best Christmas movie ever!) Quigley Down Under. Harry Potter. And, just for variety, Galaxy Quest.
Crap.
Alan Rickman, OTOH, is probably my favorite Bad Guy. Die Hard. (Best Christmas movie ever!) Quigley Down Under. Harry Potter. And, just for variety, Galaxy Quest.
Crap.
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Saturday, October 24, 2015
RIP, Maureen O'Hara
Maureen O’Hara, Actress of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Dies at 95 | Vanity Fair
My favorite John Wayne co-star, which sadly may be the way most remember her. She was quite the swashbuckler too. Swashbuckleress? Swashbucklitrix?
Maureen O'Hara - Biography - IMDb filled in a few banks I was unaware of:
My favorite John Wayne co-star, which sadly may be the way most remember her. She was quite the swashbuckler too. Swashbuckleress? Swashbucklitrix?
Maureen O'Hara - Biography - IMDb filled in a few banks I was unaware of:
In 1968 Maureen found much deserved personal happiness when she married Charles Blair. Gen. Blair was a famous aviator whom she had known as a friend of her family for many years. A new career began for Maureen, that of a full-time wife. Her marriage to Blair, however, was again far from typical. Blair was the real-life version of what John Wayne had been on the screen. He had been a Brigadier General in the Air Force, a Senior Pilot with Pan American, and held many incredible record-breaking aeronautic achievements. Maureen happily retired from films in 1973 after making the TV movie The Red Pony (1973) (which won the prestigious Peabody Award for Excellence) with Henry Fonda. With Blair, Maureen managed Antilles Airboats, a commuter sea plane service in the Caribbean. She not only made trips around the world with her pilot husband, but owned and published a magazine, "The Virgin Islander", writing a monthly column called "Maureen O'Hara Says".
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