The Wall

People Who Died, June, 2025

The dog days of Summer have been here this week and although many complain, I cannot. I prefer Summer, and the heat is part of the allure, so I’ll go with it over zero degrees with overcast skies and snow flurries. I like to go to winter, not have it come to me. Summer, on the other hand, even with the heat, I am fine with. This month we lost some shining stars and I spilled a lot of ink. A few folks were on the bubble and didn’t make the grade, largely due to all the ink spent on others, and the fact that this rag is too damned long. Hoping for less to write about next month but I am no longer sure I can think that with any degree of certainty. Fasten your seatbelts, or secure your eyewear, or shift from buttock to buttock, or whatever it is you do when you read extended pieces. Here goes.

The world of music is a little more muted this month with the loss of two very different giants. I’ll start with who I believe is the more popular and move on to the musician I believe had more of a wide-ranging impact. Brian Wilson, the moving force of the Beach Boys, and of popular California carefree living, died this month at 82. Wilson forged a new sound based upon Gershwin’s melodies, the harmonies of the Four Freshman, a bit of Chuck Berry, and Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound. He was a genius with melody and harmony in his own right and could work the studio like George Martin, creating new effects and methods of recording. Like Martin, he used the studio as its own instrument. With classics like “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “Little Deuce Coupe,” “Sloop John B,” “Good Vibrations,” and “God Only Knows,” (With Tony Asher as the lyricist), to name just a few; his became the soundtrack of a lifestyle that was fun, light hearted, and carefree; the exact opposite of the life he led, which was riddled with insecurity, drug use and mental health issues. Indeed, the man who brought the world “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” apparently never picked up a board himself. I have a belief that geniuses such as Wilson are not like us. Their brains work differently than ours and their genius is generally tortured. I recall an interview with Billy Joel, where he said (I am paraphrasing from recollection here) that he drank so much when he was writing songs because he always felt the pressure of not getting it right and was always striving to do better, which created enormous pressure on him all the time. He could never get away from it. Wilson felt that pressure, I am sure, but through the torture came his genius, and we are the beneficiaries of his suffering.

Wilson grew up in California and was the quarterback of his high school football team. After high school, he formed a band with his brothers Carl and Dennis, and their cousin Mike Love, called the Pendletons, named for the brand of shirts that surfers wore. They signed with Candix Records, which changed their name to the Beach Boys about the time their first record, “Surfin,” was released in 1961. After that it was a string of hits and fame, glory and all that follows the rock star life. After a breakdown, Wilson stopped touring with the band in the mid 60’s and focused on songwriting. Glenn Campbell replaced him for a time, then Bruce Johnston. Wilson was both enthralled by, and competitive with, the Beatles. Believing that he needed to make an album, not just of songs, but ones with a unified theme, he became fascinated with the idea of a concept album and ultimately created Pet Sounds, which was not initially well received, but is now universally thought to be a classic record. A word here about “God Only Knows,” which may be one of the best songs written. As I noted, Tony Asher was the lyricist (Wilson often worked with collaborators), and they wrote the tune in 30 minutes and included it on Pet Sounds. It is a song that Paul McCartney has stated was the best song ever written, which is about the highest praise you can give to a song. I slightly prefer “Don’t Worry Baby,” and I believe Wilson would agree with me as he once referred to it as the best Beach Boy’s song he wrote. George Martin has said that were it not for Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper would not have been made because Sgt. Pepper was “an attempt to equal ‘Pet Sounds.’” Chew on that for a moment.

Drug use and mental health issues got the better of him as he chased the concept of the album Smile. It was during this time that he wrote “Good Vibrations,” which he hoped to put on the record. For a lighthearted song about this time, I recommend The Barenaked Ladies tune “Brian Wilson.” Wilson’s road back from drugs and depression was long, and he credited his second wife, Melinda Ledbetter, with becoming a force for stability in his life, which permitted him to free himself from addiction. She took over his business affairs and through her belief in his work, nurtured him back to artistic productivity. He eventually put out the elusive Smile album, although he was never fully satisfied with it in the way that people of genius are never satisfied with their work. In a 2011 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Wilson told of feeling “uneasy’, when hearing Smile and that it was hard to perform “Good Vibrations,” due to the memories of recording it. Mere mortals would give their limbs to have been associated with having written only one of Wilson’s songs, but he was tortured by them. Wilson received his share of industry accolades, such as Grammy’s, Hall of Fame inductions and Kennedy Center awards. But it is the listening public – us- who are the true beneficiaries of Wilson’s body of work and we will continue to be for years to come.

While Wilson’s songs are, perhaps, more timeless and popular with the masses, Sly Stone, who also died this month at 82, in my mind, has had more influence on music in general. With songs like, “Stand,” “Dance to the Music,” “I Want to Take You Higher,” “Thank You,” and “Everyday People,” he fused gospel, funk, soul, psychedelic music, rhythm and blues, and rock, into a sound that was new and influential. People and bands like Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind and Fire, Parliament Funkadelic, Bobby Womack, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, and others, whose music affected even the hip-hop artists of today, can trace their roots to Sly Stone. Joel Selvin, who along with Dave Marsh wrote a book on Sly and the Family Stone, has been oft quoted recently as saying “there was black music before Sly Stone, and Black Music after Sly Stone.” I believe he was one of the more influential rock stars of my life. Mind you, Widge Devaney, who is very schooled in music, and a guy I rode on a long bike ride with discussing music, disagree with me on this, but I am firm in my belief. I can recall dumping quarter after quarter into the juke box at George’s candy store (second mention in two months), to listen to “Everyday People.” Stone, like Wilson, suffered the life of a tortured genius and like Wilson, he suffered from drug addiction, isolation and insecurity. They came from very different places and did very different things, but both Stone and Wilson wound up in very similar situations because of their genius. Looking at both of them, I revel in my mediocrity because being a genius is a burden I would not want to bear. I know I have thrown genius around a lot in this month’s rag, but as to these two, anything less would demean their honor.

Stone was born in Texas and his first run in with music was at his church choir. He was a bit of a musical prodigy as a child, playing piano, guitar, bass and drums. The family moved to California, just north of San Francisco. There, along with three siblings, the Stewart Family Four put out a gospel single, “On the Battlefield.” Stewart was his family name. The harmonies of that record stayed with him as he moved forward, albeit away from the church. Sly, was a name given to him in high school when a friend misspelled Sylvester, his given name. even in high school he got a reputation as a good musician and played in bands around the bay area. He attended broadcasting school and worked for a time as a DJ at stations with Black audiences. However, rejecting stereotypes, he did not stick to Black playlists, often spinning Dylan and the Beatles. This, too, became a theme of his music. He first formed Sly and the Stoners, a racially diverse band which became Sly and the Family Stone. Stone’s music always had a feel-good attitude, but also encompassed the notion of protest and individuality, but always in the context of community and acceptance. Far more edgy than anything the Beach Boys would do. Their performance at Woodstock, cemented the band as iconic.

Stone had to deal with the kind of pressures as a Black star that his White peers never had to. For instance, while his record company was pressuring him for more output that would appeal to the masses, the Black Panther Paty was prodding him to get more militant. Stone stayed true to his own ideals through it all, but it took a toll. He descended into eccentricity, isolation, and drug abuse. He was late to concerts, sometimes leaving the stage soon after the start of the set and often didn’t show at all. Sometimes audiences became unruly when they didn’t get their money’s worth and soon, promoters stopped booking him. Stone would make sporadic comebacks or appearances with others such as Parliament Funkadelic, or Bobby Womack, but he never could get it together for a sustained period of time. Unlike Wilson, Stone never married a second time . He could have used a force in his life like Melinda Ledbetter. His last major public event was a surprise appearance at the 2006 Grammy awards where the band was being feted. He performed but left the stage before the tune ended. Another bizarre point of intersection between Stone and Wilson was Charles Manson. Manson was a would-be rocker before he decided killing was his thing. Apparently, he befriended Dennis Wilson and Manson lived at Dennis Wilson’s house for a time and Brian co-produced about ten Manson tunes in his home studio. Stone, through Terry Melcher, Doris Day’s son (there were false rumors that Stone and Day dated), met Manson on several occasions. Just an odd aside. Recently, Questlove has done much to set the legacy of Sly Stone with his movie “Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius) .” In the end it’s not how they wound up, it’s what they gave us and Stone has given us plenty. He described it quite humbly, once saying, “[m]y only weapon is my pen. I’m a songwriter.” We’re all better off for that.

Moving along with music, as My preference is Mott the Hoople over Bad Company, but regardless, the guitarist for both bands, Mick Ralphs, died this month at 81. It’s really amazing that given the rock star lives these guys led, that he made it to 81. Perhaps I ought to be out drinking at this time, but instead, I am writing this dreck. Indeed, in the Bad Co. tune “Shooting Star,” Paul Rodgers, the great lead singer (“Alright Now”), wrote: “Johnny Died one night, died in his bed. Bottle of whisky, sleeping tablets by his head.” That’s how I expect rock stars to go out, and plenty have. Ralphs, in fact, had a stroke the day after his last performance in 2016 and has been bedridden since. Not the hoped-for rock star exit, but hey, the guy had talent. Ralphs played guitar in his teens and played in a number of bands, one which became Mott the Hoople, which name came from a 1966 novel written by Willard Manus about an eccentric who worked in a circus freak show. Ian Hunter was brought in and the band put out four albums without getting traction. David Bowie came in to produce album number 5 and brought with him “All the Young Dudes,” which is what the band is best known for. I rather fancy “All the Way to Memphis,” from the Mott album. Anyway, Ralphs and Hunter were at odds and Ralphs left. He got together with Paul Rodgers to write tunes and maybe put out an album. Rodgers told him he was working on a song called “Bad Company,” and Ralphs seized on the name and said it should be the name of the band and before they knew it, Ralphs and Rodgers, along with Simon Kirke (who had played with Rodgers in Free), and Bassist Boz Burrell, from King Crimson, were Bad Company. The band was a hit machine with love tunes like “Ready for Love,” “Feel Like Making Love, “Good Loving Gone Bad, “Love Me Somebody” (that’s a “Whole Lotta Love”). as well as the aforementioned “Bad Company,” and “Shooting Star.” The band split up in 1980, and while Ralphs put out some solo work, Bad Company would get back in one iteration or another, often with Ralphs. As noted, he played his last show with the band in 2016. Ralphs was once quoted as saying “put me onstage and I’m happy.” Thankfully for him and us, his life had a lot of happiness.

I won’t put Bobby Sherman in the musician class. Teen idol is a better description. That said, he had a string of hits in the late 60’s culminating in “Julie Do you Love Me.” Not exactly classic rock stuff but he moved the needle for young girls. He got his start as an actor in “Here Comes the Bride,” a show which I can boast never having seen. Even before “Here Comes the Bride,” he met the actor Sal Mineo who wrote some songs for him and got him started singing. He was on plenty of television shows both for his singing and acting, the Love Boat, among them, befitting his status. The thing that I love about the guy is when the acting and singing thing didn’t work out any longer, he didn’t try and live off the fame, or succumb to drugs or alcohol, or write tell-all’s about parents who mistreated him. Nope. He became and EMS and chief medical training officer for the Los Angeles Police Department. Forget royalties, this guy got a pension.

I have never been a fan of the Simpsons. I don’t like the tone of the show and believe that it, along with a lot of other television, has added to the overall irreverence in the world today. That said, I cannot deny its inventiveness. I also cannot deny that its music is content-neutral and highly respected. While Davidson brought him to my attention, it was Randy Newman’s quote about Alf Clausen, who died this month at 84, and was the musical composer for the “Simpsons” for 27 years, that “not many people can do animation and he did it every week and he did it really well,” that sealed it for me. That, and he had previously done the music for “Alf,” a show that I adored. His work with the “Simpsons” garnered him 21 Emmy nominations and two wins. Before the “Simpsons,” he had done the music for films like “Splash” and then moved to television where he worked on “Alf,” and “Moonlighting,” the Cybil Sheppard and Bruce Willis hit. They both ended and Clausen was out of work for months. Had he not been, in his word, “desperate,” he would never have taken the meeting with the “Simpsons” people. Serendipity. In 2017, the Simpsons folks fired Clausen for budgetary reasons but hired him back after some viewer (or should I say listener) outrage. Once back, though, he did not have the same impact on the music and sued Disney for age discrimination, which he settled. Sounds like a “Simpsons” episode in itself.

Another composer you have never heard of, but whose music is ubiquitous, also left us in June. Lalo Schifren, who provided the scores for over a hundred movies and television shows, died at 93. The name will not ring any bells, but the theme to “Mission Impossible,” surely will. He also scored “Cool Hand Luke,” “Bullitt” an “Dirty Harry.” For me, what gets him in is his scoring of the television show “Mannix,” which was a childhood favorite of mine. That show was a Saturday night constant in my house and if things worked out, it would be accompanied by a pizza from Didio’s. It didn’t get any better. According to his New York Times obit, Shifren “was a master of creating jittery unease and peril.” Shifren studied law and became a jazz musician even though the government of Argentina, where he was raised, frowned upon the genre. Ultimately, Dizzy Gillespie invited him to the United States to play with him, which ultimately, he did. He then moved to scoring films and television. He originally scored the theme for “Mission Impossible,” which had the working title “Burning Fuse,” as a march, but Bruce Geller, the creator of the show, wanted something that would foreshadow action. Thus, he came up with the theme which is in 5/4 making it hard to tap your foot to. Some said he borrowed from Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five,” but other than the time signature, which many jazz folks use, I do not see (or hear) the similarity. He won two Grammy’s for jazz compositions and two for the “Mission Impossible” theme (one for the theme itself and one for the soundtrack). He also won a Latin Grammy for classical contemporary composition. That is in addition to six Academy Award nominations (but no wins) for film scores. In 2018, he was awarded an Honorary Oscar, which was presented to him by Clint Eastwood, a director with whom he worked with on eight movies. Go ahead, make my day.

This may sound odd coming from me, but the Carpenters don’t get their due. Karen Carpenter was an excellent singer and an even better drummer. Their songs were well crafted but generally not by them. For songwriting, they relied on hits written by Roger Nichols, who died this month at 84. Mr. Nichols, along with Paul Williams, penned songs for the Carpenters such as “I Won’t Last A Day Without You,” “Rainy Days and Mondays.” (not to be confused with the Boomtown Rats “I don’t like Mondays”), and their biggest hit, “We’ve Only Just Begun.” The two also wrote songs like “The Rainbow Connection,” for Kermit the Frog, “Out in the Country,” for Three Dog Night, and “I Never Had it So Good,” which Barbara Streisand recorded. The team of Nichols and Williams split when Paul Williams left to write for films (One of his projects was the theme for the “Love Boat”). In addition to being a good songwriter, Nichols was a good athlete. He won a basketball scholarship to UCLA and played for two years for John Wooden. He was writing music and running up to Hollywood every chance he got. Eventually, Wooden told him he had to make a choice on what he wanted to do, and he did, leaving school to start writing full time. It turned out not to be a bad decision. Nichols, too, wrote for television, including the show “Hart to Hart, starring Robert Wagner and Stephanie Powers, whom I adored. Over the years, “We’ve only Just Begun,” has been song by everyone who is anyone. “A kiss for luck and we’re on our way.”

Ever since the Pony Express (which only lasted for 18 months) which cut down coast-to-coast mail delivery to ten days, man has tried to figure out how to deliver hard documents in shorter and shorter times. This of course, was before first the fax, and then the internet, changed the game. The man who cracked the code and brought us FedEx, Fred Smith, opened his last envelope at 80. The son of the man who owned Dixie Greyhound Lines, who was known as the Bus King of the South (he died when Fred was four), and who flew planes in his teens, wrote a paper as a Yale undergrad about how, in our fast-paced society, we needed ways to quickly get small packages from point A to point B. While the paper garnered him a C (which, given Yale’s grade inflation, means it must have really sucked) it became the genesis for Federal Express, a company he would eventually start. But first, he had to graduate Yale, join the Marine Corps, and have two tours of duty in Vietnam as a pilot. He started the company in Little Rock, but in 1973, he found an abandoned warehouse at the airport in Memphis, where he started making deliveries with 14 Dassault Falcon jets. With the notion of a spoke and hub (he wasn’t, apparently a Kotteakos fan – lawyer reference) system of delivery, he built an empire. I can remember when Memphis was the only sorting facility the company had. If you were sending a package next door, it was put on a plane to Memphis, where it was sorted and put on a plane back to New York for delivery the following day. All this flying happened at night when the skies were less crowded, and airport fees could be negotiated lower. Early on, there were funding problems and lore has it that at one point, Smith headed to Vegas and earned $27,000 in operating funds at the blackjack tables. There was also an investigation by the Department of Justice that, in furtherance of the age-old notion of fake it until you make it, he dummied up a document and inflated his worth to get financing. He was indicted and ultimately found not guilty of fraud because by then he had made it, something Elizabeth Holmes did not. Those days are in the rear-view mirror now as FedEx (the name was changed in 2000) has some 500,000 employees, ships some 16 million packages a day, and operates in 220 countries and territories around the world. The way to keep track of all of this, bar codes, was also an innovation that Smith adopted early on. Smith really spawned an entire industry of overnight delivery, and as with Kleenex, Xerox, and Google, the name of his company has become a verb. During all this, he became a billionaire several times over. He financed movies, was part owner of the Washington (now) Commanders, and wielded political influence. Isn’t that what the really rich do now-a-days? To the victors, the spoils. Elizabeth Holmes is due to be released in January, 2032.

The ranks of the 69 Mets still alive to talk about their feats is thinning. This month we lost pitcher, turned doctor, Ron Taylor, who died at 87. Taylor, from Toronto (or the 51^st State if you run around wearing a red hat with big white lettering), played in the majors for 11 seasons, breaking in with the Cleveland Indians (hey, that’s what they were then) in 1962. In ‘64 he helped pitch the St. Louis Cardinals, to a World Series Championship over the Yankees. In his first major league start with Cleveland, he pitched 11 shutout innings against the Boston Red Sox and had two hits to assist in trying to get the win. It all went to shit in the 12^th when he loaded the bases and then surrendered a grand slam home run to work his ass off for a loss. That could never happen today as a new pitcher would rarely get 75 pitches in, let alone 12 innings. He pitched in another three games before being sent back to the minors and was eventually traded to the Cardinals. In the ’64 season, he had eight wins and eight saves for the Cards in their run to the Championship of the National League. He pitched twice in relief during the World series, holding the Yankees hitless in 4 and 2/3 innings. He had two more lackluster years with the Cardinals and was traded to the Astros, where he fared no better for a year and was purchased by the New York Mets in 1967. He pitched well in relief for the Mets in ‘67 and ‘68 and was an important part of the Mets miracle season of ’69. Along with Tug McGraw, the Met’s used a bullpen by committee with Taylor and Tug doing most of the closing. In ’69, he made 59 appearances and had 13 wins and 13 saves with a 2.72 ERA. As with the Cardinals, he appeared twice in the ’69 World Series and pitched 2 and 1/3 innings of hitless ball. Thus, for his career, he pitched seven innings of hitless, World Series, baseball. Not bad. Tayler stayed with the Mets until ‘71 and was sent to Montreal and then the San Diego Padres where he pitched his last game in 1972. After the ’69 Series, like many champions, the players were asked on all sorts of trips. Tayor accepted one to Vietnam where he visited field hospitals and witnessed the injuries suffered by our soldiers. He said that the experience drove him in the direction of medicine, and after his playing days, he enrolled in The University of Toronto Medical School. He had already earned a degree in electrical engineering from the school. He became a licensed physician and ultimately was the team doctor for the Toronto Blue Jays for 30 years, earning two more Championship rings with the Jays. Probably easier to be the team physician than it was to come out of the bullpen to win his earlier rings.

While the Met’s were winning the Series in 69, the Jets won their one and only Super Bowl. On that team was Jerry Philbin, a quarterback sack specialist before quarterback sacks were a thing (they didn’t start recording sacks as a stat until 1982), who died this month at 84. In fact, Philbin with 64.5 sacks, is 4^th all-time in sacks on the Jets. At that time, the Jet’s were Namath’s team and everyone else was second fiddle. In 1972, after a lackluster year, Philbin asked for a “token” raise and was told by coach Weeb Eubank, “we don’t give out donations.” Namath, who had a similarly lackluster year, got a nice raise. Philbin was traded to Kansas City and then to Philadelphia in 1973. In a game against the Jets, Philbin put a late hit on Namath’s blind side that drove him into the muddy field. According to the writer Mark Kreigel, Namath came to represent everything Philbin hated about the Jets. As to the hit, Kriegel’s quote about Philbin’s thinking was “charity? Here’s your charity Weeb.” Philbin later expressed regret about the hit, calling the encounter “unfortunate because I really like Joe.” An All-Star in 68 and 69, he was never voted into the Hall of Fame, although he was named to their All-Time team of the AFL. He was inducted into the Jets Ring of Honor. After football he ran a sand and gravel business on Long Island. He and his partner were charged and tried for manslaughter when a sandpit caved in killing an employee. They were both acquitted by a jury. The guy’s a winner.

Dave Parker who died this month at 74, was a bigger star than both Taylor and Philben but hey, I’m a homer. I’m also pissed that the Pirates swept the Mets by an aggregate score of 30-4 this weekend. Anyway, none of that should detract from Parker’s greatness, because he was that. He played for several teams but will always be known as a Pirate because it was there where he had his greatest success. The Pirates, who adopted the Sister Sledge song, “We are Family,” were World Champions in 1979. Parker won the batting title in 79, as well as the year earlier in 78, when he was also named the MVP of the National League. He was named seven times to the All-Star team. He also had a rocket for an arm and won three gold gloves. From 1975 to 1979 he threw 72 runners out at the plate. He won baseball’s first ever Home Run Derby in 1985. He was awarded major league baseball’s second million-dollar-a-year contract. In working class Pittsburgh, a salary of that size was resented by a lot of fans who would hurl batteries and other objects at him as he played right field (he succeeded Pirate great Roberto Clemente at the position). Sickened of it, he once pulled himself out of a game when a 9-volt whizzed by his head. He demanded a trade which the Pirates refused. When his contract was up, he signed with the Reds where he had some good years. In 1985, he had another great year but after that, injuries began to erode his skills. He was then traded to the Oakland Athletics where he was largely a designated hitter, and he helped them to a World Series win in 1989. After Oakland he signed with Milwaukee and was traded to the California Angels. He ended his playing career with the Toronto Blue Jays. He coached first base for the Anaheim Angels and for a time was hitting coach for the Cardinals and a special hitting coach for the Pirates. When he was with the Reds, he testified in a trial of Curtis Strong for cocaine distribution. Parker admitted to being a regular user of the product and admitted that he got it for other players as well. Baseball suspended Parker and the others for a year, but they were able to buy their way out of the suspensions by agreeing to donate 10% of their salaries to drug-related assistance programs and adhere to testing and the like. That episode kept him out of the Hall of Fame until late last year when the Classic Baseball Era Committee voted him in. He will be inducted into the Hall in July, 29 days after his death. That, like his death, is very sad.

The news business is a tough place to be lately, largely since you cannot tell whether it is news or public relations. There was a time, however, mostly pre-cable, when news folks were credible reporters of the news, without a political angle attached. Bill Moyers, who died this month at 91, was one such professional. Oddly enough, even though old-school, he did get his start in politics, not journalism school. And he was also an ordained Baptist Minister. He was one of Lyndon Johnson’s closest advisors (he was on the plane from Texas to the Capital when Johnson was sworn in after the Kennedy assassination), helped to form the Peace Corps, played a role in the implementation of Johnson’s Great Society agenda and worked with the President as his Press Secretary (in addition to other roles) during the escalation of the Vietnam war. Ultimately, he had a falling out with the President that was never repaired. He even refused to be interviewed by Robert Caro who has spent the better part of his life chronicling Johnson. His inciteful reporting of the news and creation of documentaries, which looked into issues such as, poverty, racial bigotry, income inequality, and the role of money in politics, all issues that still need looking at today, won him 30 Emmy awards. He was often compared to his mentor, Edward R. Murrow, a giant in the field. His issues were generally the plight of the common man which won him accolades from the left and scorn from the right. After he left the Johnson Administration, he went to work for Newsday, the Long Island paper, as its publisher. He strengthened its news operation and during his tenure, the paper earned two Pulitzers. He began producing weekly public affairs shows for PBS. During his career, he bounced between CBS and PBS depending really on funding and which would permit him to do the kind of reporting he wanted. With PBS (whose President was his wife), he produced hundreds of documentaries, often several on the same issue, involving a broad range of topics. His reporting was of consequence. He was not bombastic but tenacious. He once said that “secrecy is the freedom tyrants dream of,” and he fought against it tirelessly.

This month was, unfortunately, full of death, so there were some people on the bubble who might have made it had some of our featured folks held out for another month or so. Folks such as Betsey Jochum, the last living player from the woman’s professional baseball league who died at 104; James Lowe, the frontman for The Electric Prunes, who died at 82; Lou Christie, the pop crooner who alsodied at 82; Gunilla Knutson, the star of the shaving crème commercial who says “Take it off. Take it all off,” who died at 84; Wayne Lukas, the famed horse trainer, who died at 89; Mortimer Matz, the famed PR man who made it to 100; Jim Marshall, the defensive end for the Minnesota Vikings who died at 87; Marthe Cohn, the Jewish nurse who worked for the French resistance spying on the Nazis, who died at 105; and the celebrity chef Anne Burrell, who died at 55. None of them are going to get to see the 4^th of July fireworks this year, so you should especially enjoy them for these folks. Stay safe over the holiday.