Well, I haven't had to write an obit in — what is it? About ten hours? Good. Let's see if I can make it to 2017 without having to do another one.
I keep hearing folks saying that more people they know — as actual friends or just famous people they know of — are dying these days and I wonder if that's so. I mean, every week, someone who's in my address book passes away but I think that's a result of how large my address book is. It's at like 2100 names.
You've all heard someone say that as you get older, more and more of your friends pass away…since the older you are, the older your friends are. Maybe that's so…but as I get older, the list of people I've met gets larger and larger.
Also, I think news coverage these days in all areas gets more expansive. Bill Everett, the creator of the comic book character The Sub-Mariner and the co-creator of Daredevil died in 1973. There was absolutely no news coverage in the mainstream press and precious little in publications about comics. When Will Eisner, the creator of The Spirit died in 2005, it was a major news story in every major newspaper the day it happened. I think there's been a similar expansion in all areas of The Arts. So maybe there aren't more deaths. Maybe we're just hearing about more of the ones that do occur.
And that's about all the time 'n' space I feel like devoting to this topic right now. No more obits this year, okay?
I Shoulda Known Department: I've received lotsa e-mails demanding that I tell the story of how it is that Carrie Fisher and I went skinny-dipping when I was ten years old and she was six. Honest, folks…there's no real intriguing tale there.
Back when I was under the age of about twelve, I kept finding myself playing with girls, more so than with boys. For some reason, if we were in swimsuits, one or more of the girls would often suggest we take off those swimsuits for at least a few minutes. I later tried to figure out why this kept happening. Well, actually I tried to figure out why they didn't do this after I was about twelve. I came to the conclusion that I just happened to meet a lot of girls who were either curious to see what prepubescent male genitalia looked like and/or wanted to kinda dare themselves to be naked in front of a boy, any boy.
Now then. My mother's best friend was the sister of a man named Harry Karl, who ran the nation's largest privately held retail shoe chain, Karl Shoes. From 1960 until 1973, Mr. Karl was married to the wonderful actress Debbie Reynolds, mother of Carrie Fisher. So my mother's friend was related to Carrie. I think that makes her a step-aunt or something of the sort.
My mother's friend lived in a huge mansion with a spectacular swimming pool and we were often there for parties and to use the pool. One afternoon, there was a brunch with several families present including ours and the Karls. A bunch of us kids were in the pool when our adult supervision, who was not very responsible, had to leave us alone for a few minutes. I think it was four girls and me.
One of the other girls (not Carrie) dared us all to take off our swimsuits and we all did and that's really all there is to the story. I'm sorry, for your sake and mine, that there isn't more to it. The girls at the time were sorry there wasn't more to it, too.
About five dozen readers of this site e-mailed me in response to my query about how to turn old Wordstar files into new Word files. Some of you were very helpful and I appreciate all the messages. I've suddenly gotten quite busy so I'm putting the whole Wordstar matter on hold until my "to do" list shrinks a bit and a few of you may hear from me then.
I really like the folks who read this blog…all except the guy who keeps writing to tell me that Donald Trump got the biggest landslide victory ever and Barack Obama had the counting rigged to hide that fact. Personally, I think that if Obama was going to go to the trouble to rig the count, he could at least have given us a president most people like.