Weekly recap and cremation.
It’s the Memorial Day weekend, and the air is choked grey with smoke from thousands and thousands of smoldering backyard barbeques, and the permeating stink of charred flesh. (We ODDFellows are certainly not beyond our own form of purple prose
.) How fitting that Arnie Morton, master restaurateur and originator of “Morton’s”
has passed on. We trust he is not in a certain place perpetually barbequing, but rather at a fine table, pondering the dessert
menu.
Time for the weekly recap:
LUDMILLA N. SHAPIRO (91). Nimble fingered collector of Soviet-era political porcelain (try saying that three times.) Cause of death not specified. SMERSH
?
EDDIE ALBERT (99): Noted actor, resident of Green Acres, and visitor to Hooterville
. No doubt missed by his pet pig “Arnold.”
Pneumonia and Alzheimer’s.
VIVIAN L. DISTIN (77): First wife of Johnny Cash and inspiration for “I walk the line.” (He didn’t–it was Johnny’s amphetamine
era.) Died following surgery for lung cancer.
KEIITI AKI (75): Seismologist. Killed by gravity (a fall caused brain hemorrhage.)
RUTH LAREDO (67): Pianist who gave commentary on what she played. We once slept with a woman that did the same thing. At first it was a tad erotic, but quickly became tedious.
Cancer.
ISMAIL MERCHANT (68): Producer of movies, including “Room with a View.” Complications of abdominal surgery.
THURL RAVENSCROFT (91): Voice actor, best known for Tony the Tiger is Deeeaaaad! Cause was prostate cancer. When you visit The Mouse
, you will hear his voice in Pirates of the Caribbean, Splash Mountain, and the Haunted Mansion (spooky, huh?).
FRANK SEARLE (84): Loch Ness monster hunter. Cause of death unspecified. Wet footprints found at site of death being followed by Scotland Yard
.
HOLLYWOOD DUN IT (22): Famous reining horse. ODD does not condone nor does it practice speciesism
: we have been known to eat anything
.
HOWARD MORRIS (85): Actor, director, and voice-over artist. Produced voices of Qantas Koala bear, Atom Ant, and Gerald McBoing-Boing. Heart disease.
STEPHEN ELLIOT (85): Actor who played Dudley Moore’s evil millionaire father in “Arthur.” Congestive heart failure.
It was not a good week for mathematicians who helped create linear programming.
GEORGE B. DANTZIG (90) died of diabetes and heart disease.
LEONARD KHACHIYAN (52) died of a heart attack.
ELLIS PAGE (81): Widely published educational psychologist who also produced a computer program to grade essays. Pneumonia.
Off to fire up the ODDcharcoal broiler. We find a 1:2 mixture of gasoline to diesel fuel works quite nicely. It does leave a slight after-taste of hydrocarbons and a bouquet best described as “bus stop
