I have a whole bunch of messages like this one from Jim Graves…
I'm probably not the first to send you this, but in case I am, here is an article in the Hollywood Reporter website regarding the death of Welcome Back, Kotter co-creator Alan Sacks. I assume you knew him from your time working on the show, perhaps you even knew him well. If you counted him as a friend, my condolences on your loss.
Thanks but I'm afraid I never met Alan Sacks. He had — and I'm sure, still has — a fine reputation as both a writer and a human being. But I don't think he ever came around when I was working on that show… or if he did, no one bothered to introduce him to me. My loss, I guess.
But I got a number of e-mails about Mr. Sacks and every day or two, I get a message asking "Why didn't you write an obit for So-and-So?" referring to someone else. Sometimes, they presume I had a grudge or something against the person. No. I either never knew the deceased or couldn't think of anything to say about them that had not already been said elsewhere. Please…don't assume I'm snubbing someone who just died. The reason I'm not posting about them is almost certainly not that. It might even be that I hadn't heard about their passing.