The Wall

People who died, November, 2024

Brace yourselves. I’m not sure if it was the election results but a lot of people decided to check out this month, making for a lengthy waste of your time. You might want to just delete this now because you proceed at your own peril. You’ll never get the time you fritter away on this dreck back. Then again, with R.F.K., Jr, as your HHS Director, you may want all the fritter you can get.

Quincy Jones, a major force in music, both out front with his playing and orchestrating, and behind with his productions, has died at 91. His musical work spanned generations from playing with Lionel Hampton and Count Basie to working with Michael Jackson on some of his greatest albums. It was he who drafted Calcagni’s favorite, EVH, to play on “Beat It.” He worked with everyone from Frank Sinatra to Sarah Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald to Elvis, to Leslie Gore to a large number of hip-hop artists who have sampled his work over the years. He scored scores of movies such as “Walk Don’t Run,” “In Cold Blood,” “The Italian Job,” “Cactus Flower,” and “They Call Me Mr. Tibbs,” to name a few, as well as television shows such as “Ironside,” “The Bill Cosby Show,” and “Roots.” An activist and philanthropist, as well as a record company executive, he was the force behind the “We Are the World,” a song written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie but produced by Jones who was really responsible for the whole project and putting together the amazing cast of musicians who appeared on the record, made to raise funds for the Ethiopian famine, which sold over 20 million copies. Jones garnered 28 Grammy awards (with 80 nominations), was nominated several times for Oscars for his movie scores, received a slew of honorary doctorates from places like Harvard and Princeton and was the recipient of the National Medal of Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, Jazz Masters Fellowship. His accomplishments are more worthy of a book than two paragraphs.

He started in music by playing the trumpet and arranging for big bands. He left music school to tour with Lionel Hampton. Earlier in his life, at age 14, he befriended Ray Charles who was a mentor, and who got him hooked on heroin for a short time. He did a lot of arranging for others and recorded albums with his own bands. That eventually led him to working for Mercury records where he shored up their jazz roster, signing such great artists as Dizzy Gillespie and Gerry Mulligan. His work at Mercury brought him into contact with Leslie Gore where he produced her hit “It’s My Party.” His work on “the Wiz, as musical director, brought him into contact with Michael Jackson and he went on to produce the King of Pop’s three most popular albums with Thriller, breaking all the sales records. It still competes with the Eagles Greatest Hits for the top spot. The biggest hit to come out of those records is “Beat It, which features the guitar work of EVH. The way that came about, Jones called EVH to ask him to play on the tune, but Van Halen thought it was a joke and cursed out the person on the phone, who was actually Jones. Once Van Halen calmed down, he still was not sure it wasn’t a prank but agreed to meet the following day in a studio. Sure enough, Michal and Quincy were there. EVH was given freedom to do whatever he wanted and he actually changed the song as Jackson wrote it to fit what he was doing. When Michael returned to hear what he had done, Eddie had to explain that he made some changes. Jackson liked what he heard and appreciated EVH taking the time to make alterations to the song and not just play his part and leave. While Jackson was happy, Van Halen’s brother, Alex, was not, because the success of that song and the album kept Van Helen’s own record, “1984” from doing all that well. This was all about Jones, thinking out of the box musically to achieve the best result for the record. As noted, with all his musical success in everything he touched, Quincy became an activist for causes he believed in and a philanthropist believing that God opposes the love of money. He gave generously to causes he believed in. Musician, artist, producer, activist, philanthropist and someone whose craft work will live on beyond all our lives, I don’t think one could have a more full life. “Don’t stop ‘til you get enough.”

A little more than 50 years ago, a woman by the name of Floss Stingel recorded the phrase “watch the tram car, please” which has been used continuously since that time by the tram cars that ply the Wildwood Boardwalk. Recently, she sued Wildwood claiming that she should have been paid for all the times her voice has been used. Sounds like a money grab to me, especially in light of the fact that Elwood Edwards, who died this month at 74, the man who voiced the words “you’ve got mail,” for AOL, heard by millions upon millions, only got twenty bucks for his efforts. And throw in “welcome,” “file’s done,” and “goodbye,” for free. It is estimated that his voice was heard 35 million times a day at the height of AOL’s popularity. Take that Ms. Stingel. You may owe Wildwood money under that pay scale. This all came about because Mr. Edwards wife, worked for Quantum Computer Services that would eventually become AOL. Mr. Edwards did voiceovers for commercials, and when Mrs. Edwards heard that the company was thinking about using voice commands, she had Mr. Edwards record the four phrases on a cassette recorder. She brought it to the powers-to-be at the company who liked what they heard and paid Mr. Edwards a whopping $20 for his efforts, which, frankly, weren’t much. The rest is history. Cheap history at that. A movie by the same name made millions. But let’s be fair, it gave him great satisfaction, I am sure, to be part of what is now the fabric of the internet. He did get some gigs out of it appearing (by voice) on the Simpsons and in a Shopify commercial as well as a “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” appearance. And heck, he got a New York Times Obit out of it. Probably more than Ms. Stingel will ever get.

Ted Olsen, one of the greatest appellate advocates of our time, died at 84. Known as a staunch conservative, Republican (he helped found the Federalist Society), he had a Libertarian streak that to me was stronger than his political leanings. He was not a trial lawyer but rather built his law firm, Gibson Dunn’s, appellate practice, where he pretty much argued exclusively appeals. He argued some 65 cases before the Supreme Court which is a huge amount given that Court’s calendar. Some of the cases he argued were among the most important in recent years. He was up against David Boies in Bush v. Gore, where he successfully argued that George Bush had won the election. He also successfully argued in favor of President Bush’s broad executive powers after the September 11^th attacks. In a case that remains controversial, he successfully reversed election financing restraints on corporations, enabling them to spend unlimited amounts on elections in the Citizens United case. In a turn, he argued in favor of gay marriage, enlisting his nemesis in Bush v. Gore, Mr. Boies, to assist in the case. He also argued in favor of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) kids against the Trump administration’s attempts to end the program which permits children of undocumented (or illegal) aliens to stay in the Country. These latter cases can be reconciled with his right wing leanings because he was more a Libertarian, as well as his healthy regard for the Constitution. On the negative side, he represented Tom Brady in the deflate-gate matter. Everyone has a flaw. For a great Obit with a crisp legal analysis of Mr. Olsen that is far better than anything I could write, check out David Lat’s piece in Original Jurisdiction, linked here:

In Memoriam: Theodore ‘Ted’ Olson (1940-2024)

For those of you wanting a great weekly analysis of key matters occurring in the law, I commend Original Jurisdiction to all of you. It’s well worth the time you would spend reading it, especially if the alternative is this rag. Back to Olsen after that quick commercial break. He was a great advocate and really built Gibson Dunn’s appellate practice into a juggernaut. The only times Olsen strayed from the firm were the two occasions he was drafted for government service. He was Assistant Attorney General in Charge of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Reagan Administration and for Bush, he was the Solicitor General which is the arm of the Department of Justice that argues appellate cases. He was strongly considered by Bush to replace Sandra Day O’Conner on the Supreme Court. The State of New Jersey hired him to fight the ban on sports betting. He was brought on even before the lawsuit was started so that he could quarterback the case from the ground up. Jersey lost at the trial and intermediate appellate level but that is when Olsen’s rockets fired, and he won before the Supremes permitting the entire country to now lose their shirts betting on pretty much every part of every sporting event known to man. Olsen’s hourly rate at the time was pretty outrageous and he made it clear that he “didn’t cut it for anyone.” In retrospect, he was well worth the money. His life was not always charmed. He lost his wife Barbara on September 11, 2001. She was on flight 77 from Los Angeles that crashed into the Pentagon. She and Olsen conversed while she was on the flight, and he recorded part of their conversations on a phone that is now in the Smithsonian. He advocated that the Government should not try and get the death penalty for those responsible for the attacks given the legal landscape and prodded the government to offer life sentences to those responsible in order to end the matter. He may get his wish.

To all of you who, as kids, wore JanSport knapsacks on your back when you headed to school, the guy who changed the way we carry things in this country, Murray McCory, the founder of JanSport, died this month at 80. Mr. McCory was a student at Washington University where he met Jan Lewis who became his girlfriend and ultimately is wife. He had won a design competition for making a backpack with a lightweight aluminum frame. After winning, he decided to start a company and with his girlfriend he began JanSport, named for Ms. Lewis. At first, it was only them and they fashioned everything. The company did well as a startup but needed a product that had more widespread appeal than just to outdoor folks. They couple thought about their time at Washington U and carrying all their books to class and Mr. McCrory decided to take an existing frameless, nylon backpack and reinforce the bottom so it could hold books, add some zippered compartments, and call it the University Bookstore Rucksack. It became a hit and the standard bookbag for millions of students across the world. The popularity of the rucksack lasted longer than Mr. McCory’s marriage to Jan, but the uncoupling was amicable. Backpacks were not all the company did. Mr. McCory came up with a domed tent based upon yurts and soon everyone was selling domed tents. They sold the company to K2, the ski maker, before they divorced. Mr. McCory remarried and moved to Eastern Washington where he lived simply, eschewing the glamour his money could have afforded him. He remained true to his values, and you can’t knock that.

It was a bad month for coaches. We lost John Robinson who coached the L.A. Rams at 89, Gerry Faust who coached the Fighting Irish, also at 89, and Bela Karolyi who coached gymnasts, amongst them Nadia Comaneci (who married the gymnast Bart Conner), at 82, proving initially that you can live longer as a football coach. I’ll go with Robinson first. Each year I have a bet with a good friend on the U.S.C./Notre Dame game where I take the Irish because when your alma mater is Fordham, you don’t have good odds of winning anything. The bet is that the loser has to go to the winner’s city of choice and buy dinner. I have had a good run recently but when John Robinson was coaching the Trojans (why would you name your mascot after a failed civilization?) I would have had to pay for quite a few dinners as Robinson coached USC to a National Championship and four Rose Bowl victories. He also had the benefit of two Heisman winners, Marcus Allen and Charles White. In the pros, he coached the Los Angeles Rams and made the playoffs in six of his first seven seasons and twice won the AFC Championships, each time, losing to the eventual Super Bowl champion (the Bears in 85 and the 49ers in 89). Unlike most coaches, who are hard-asses, Robinson was a sweetheart. According to his N.Y. Times obit, when asked how he would address his team for his last game, which was against Notre Dame, he said, “I think it will be a ‘win one for the fat guy’ type of thing.”

Now on to Faust who was the Notre Dame coach, and fortunately, not while I was betting them. Gerry Faust grew up in Ohio and dreamed of playing quarterback for the Fighting Irish. He made it to a tryout but when he saw the competition, he knew he was headed elsewhere. The University of Dayton, in particular. Having lost out on a playing role with the team, he altered his dream to coaching the Irish. However, he only made it to the high school level. That said, he was pretty good, coaching the football team at Archbishop Moeller to a record of 174-17-2. Then, in a move somewhat akin to making me the editor-in-chief of the New Yorker, Notre Dame picked Faust to be its coach following the resignation of Coach Dan Devine, in 1980. Devine had coached the Irish to the national title in ‘77 with Joe Montana as his quarterback. Faust would have no such luck going 30-26-1 with only one bowl appearance. To Notre Dame, they were close to being the Jets of college football. Faust, a devout Catholic, would often tell his players to recite a Hail Mary on the sideline to help the team. Now I’m no football coach, but seeking divine intervention on fourth and three seems not a great game plan, even to me. After his five year tenure at Notre Dame, he went on to coach at the University of Akron where he was 36-51-3. While I’m sure he at times pined for the Old Archbishop Moeller days, going from high school coach to head-coach of Notre Dame is quite the Cinderella story. Maybe there is something to those Hail Mary’s.

Now we are back to hard-ass coaches. Bela Karolyi coached the 1976 Romanian, women’s gymnastics team, with Nadia Comaneci as its star, to Olympic gold and fame. Ms. Comaneci scored a perfect ten in her performance, at the age of 14. In 1980 Karolyi and his wife defected to the U.S. where he coached the American women’s team which at the time starred Mary Lou Retton, who became the first female American gymnast to win Olympic gold. Under his tutelage, and that of his wife, the American team flourished. Then came reports of harsh treatment of athletes and in today’s world, that is a career killer. Hard to square the reports of harsh treatment of his athletes with the vision of his carrying the gymnast Keri Strug to the podium to receive her gold medal after she valiantly performing her vault with a severely sprained ankle (and Karolyi shouting “you can do it”), sticking the landing, then dropping to the floor in a heap where she was scooped up by her coach. The critics seem to have credibility here so while the results were great, the road to get there was apparently a high price to pay.

While We are on the topic of Olympics, I’ll note that Trevor Sorbie, who designed the wedge cut that Dorothy Hamill sported, and which seemingly overshadowed her incredible skating performance in the 1976 Olympics, died this month at 75

Sticking with the sports theme, Bobby Allison, the NASCAR driver, has made his last left turn at 86. He was a three-time winner of the Daytona 500 which is the Super Bowl of stock car racing (which surprisingly, is the first race of the season) in a career that saw 85 major wins, and a Winston Cup championship in 1983. He was four times voted the most liked driver on the NASCAR circuit. NASCAR, by the way, stands for National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. Allisons life, like many in his industry, was marred by tragedy. His son, Cliff, died in practicing for a race and a second son Davey, was killed when the helicopter he was trying to land at the Talladega racecourse crashed. Allison himself was in a crash that ended his career and left him with neurological damage. The race that really put NASCAR on the map was the 1979 Daytona 500. It was on during a big snowstorm in the Midwest and Northeast, neither strongholds of the sport. Because lots of people had nothing to do, viewership was bigger than normal, and the sport had recently installed cameras in cars providing an interesting vantage point from which to watch. The race was close but on the last lap, Allison’s car collided with Cale Yarborough’s car, and they spun into the infield allowing Richard Petty to win. While Petty was heading to the winner’s circle, Allison and Yarborough were caught on camera in a fistfight, all to the delight of first-time viewers of a NASCAR race which hugely added to its popularity. While Allison lost the race, I believe he won the fight.

I am not fond of heights and think that the guys who hang glide have to be nuts. The most nuts among them was Bill Moye, who died safely on the ground at 92. Moye is purported to be the first person to hang glide when he ambled up to the top of an Australian ski slope and launched a makeshift kite he had cobbled together, not knowing if he would plummet to earth and never make it to 92. He flew at 1,000 feet for over two miles to the amazement of the skiers on the slopes. An historian quoted in Mr. Moyes New York Times obit said that Mr. Moyes flight took a very special “combination of crazy and daring.” I’ll say.

If you thought it was perilous to be one of Spinal Tap’s drummers, because they had a tendency to spontaneously combust, that gig pales in comparison to being the drummer for the Bee Gees. The band lost two of them (drummers that is), inside of a week this month. Colin Peterson, known as Smiley, played on the Bee Gees first four albums, back when they were finding their sound, and well before their disco faze vaulted them to superstardom, died at 78. His era of the band spawned such songs as “To Love Somebody,” “I’ve Just Gotta Get A Message To You,” and “I Started a Joke.” Dennis Bryon, at the other end of the Bee Gees, when their Saturday Night Fever album cemented their stardom, died at 76 only days prior to Mr. Peterson’s passing. He was on such hits as “Stayin Alive,” “You Should Be Dancing” (which is set at the rhythm that you should pound someone’s chest when you are performing CPR), and “How Deep Is Your Love.” While I do like the later stuff, I prefer Mr. Peterson’s time in the Bee Gees artistically. That said, if given the opportunity, I’ll take my chances drumming to “Smell the Glove.”

Roy Haynes was not one of the Bee Gees drummers but a renowned Jazz virtuoso on the kit also went banging this month at 99. He played with all the Jazz greats starting with Sarah Vaughn, and then Thelonius Monk, Charlie Parker, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea and Pat Methaney. He won two Grammy’s for his work and was named by the National Endowment for the Arts as a Jazz Master. One of the great compliments for a musician is to be copied (not having your copyright ripped off, though) and Haynes’ style of play was, let’s say, emulated, by Tony Williams and Jack Dejohnette two greats in their own right. High praise for one of Jazz’ greats.

There was a time when you could get anything you want at Alice’s restaurant, but no more as Alice Brock, the Alice in Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant,” has gone off to the big trash heap in the sky at 83. As Mr. Guthrie sings, “Alice’s restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, that’s just the name of the song, that’s why I call the song Alice’s Restaurant.” Ms. Brock ran a restaurant called the Back Room which was referred to as Alice’s restaurant by Mr. Guthrie in his rambling story (the song spans some 18 minutes and 34 seconds) about being arrested one Thanksgiving for illegally dumping garbage for which he was caught because as he puts it in the song, “I put that envelope with my name on it under that half ton of garbage.”). By the way, let me boast a bit here. The quotes are from memory because there is no way I am going back to listen to the song for quotes, having at one point in my life, known all the lyrics. Guthrie was forced to confess because the Stockbridge police had gathered great evidence including “twenty-seven 8 by 10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, explaining what each one was, to be used as evidence” against him. This all caused Mr. Guthrie problems when he ultimately had to go to the Draft Board some time later, according to the song, because his “criminal” past got him put on the Group W bench which, as he noted, was where they put you “if they did not think you were moral enough to join the army” and “burn women, houses, kids, and villages, after being a litterbug.” Anyway, back to Alice, the restaurant had closed by the time the record came out. Ms. Brock ran several other restaurants ultimately resettling in Provincetown, Massachusetts and working as an artist which didn’t earn her a great living. She never really enjoyed the notoriety she received from the song and in the past few years she was ailing and friends set up a GoFundMe page which lovers of the song generously donated to. Were it me, I would have opened and franchised Alice’s Restaurants all over the Country. I mean, if Jersey Mikes can sell for $8 billion, imagine what a song with a record behind it could make. “I mean if 50 people, I said 50 people a day do it, they may call it a movement.” And movements make money.

I’ve said this before in earlier posts, but unlike movie producers who provide little but money, record producers actually act more like musical movie directors and form the sound of the music that finds its way onto the record, or CD, or Spotify, as the case may be. Unlike a movie director, however, may great producers toil in anonymity. One of the producers who helped formulate the sound of the British Invasion, even though he was American, Shel Talmy, died at 87. He produced the Kinks tune, “You really Got Me,” which caught the ear of Pete Townshend who brought him on to produce the Who. Thus, he produced the tune “I can’t Explain and “My Generation,” amongst others, using an array of recording techniques to individualize the band’s sound. He also worked with Manfred Mann, Chad and Jeremy, Donovan, early David Bowie, when he was still Davy Jones, as well as, Jimmy Page, when he was a sideman. “Hope I die before I get old.”

Speaking of Jimmy Page, as a young guitarist he used to look over the shoulder of another great guitarist, whose name few people know, to see how it was done. That guy, Vic Flick, died at 87. Flick was everywhere in his day, and if you listened to early 60’s music you probably heard him as much as you heard any musician. He played with Herman’s Hermits, Petula Clark, Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield, B.J. Thomas, the aforementioned Bee Gees, Cliff Richard, Peter and Gordon, Nancy Sinatra, the Beatles and many more. It’s his guitar on the James Bond Theme. I first heard of him when I watched an episode of Pawn Stars which you can see here:

. I truly love it when you hear about people who toil in anonymity but make some of the most important music there is. Guys like Ric Flick are the true musical champions.

Somehow, in each of these, I am either writing about EVH for Calcagni or about someone who Don Davidson has lobbied for. Well for this one, Don didn’t lobby but back in August of 2023, he did lobby when David LaFlamme died. LaFlamme was partially responsible for the song “Whitebird,” which was not a particular favorite of mine. A tad pretentious for my taste. Well this month, the other conspirator in the writing of that song, his then wife, Linda LaFlamme, died at 85. Ms. LaFlamme and her husband were both part of the band It’s A Beautiful Day, and one of those beautiful days she was futzing around on the piano and Mr. LaFlamme was taken with a chord progression and in two hours they had completed writing “White Bird,” a song that still haunts me like the Kars for Kids jingle, I said in Mr. LaFlamme’s obit. The Album the song appeared on made it to 47 on the Billboard charts before the band, and the marriage, dissolved. She later formed some bands and composed music for some Bay area theatre companies, never reaching the heights of “White Bird,” but hey, she once did.

While I am writing about pretentious songs, Peter Sinfield, the lyricist on the first four King Crimson albums, and the person who gave the band its name, after his lyrics to “the Court of the Crimson King,” died at 80. I can’t say I was a fan of the band which Mr. Sinfield admitted purposely tried to make the songs complicated, which to me, is often the antithesis of good music. He wrote the lyrics for “21^st Century Schizoid Man,” in addition to many more that most of you are, I am sure, not familiar with, and for good reason. Mr. Sinfield also wrote with others, such as Greg Lake, with whom he co-wrote “I believe in Father Christmas.” He also wrote the lyrics for the Celine Dion hit “Think Twice.” “As slowly turns the grinding wheel; in the court of the crimson king.”

If you have travelled beyond your immediate neighborhood, there is a good chance you purchased a guidebook. I love to buy guidebooks before I travel someplace because I can take myself there a number of times before I actually go. It’s sort of a pre-vacation look into where I will be, and hopefully what I will do. One of the leaders in the guidebook arena is Frommers and the guy who started it all, Arthur Frommer, has stamped his passport to the hereinafter. Mr. Frommer went to Yale Law school, where he was an editor of the Law Review, and then went into the army. Because of his aptitude for languages (he spoke Russian, French, and German), he was assigned to an intelligence unit in Germany. It was there that he acquired his lust for travel. And travel on the cheap, because he was on a soldier’s salary. At the end of his tour he published a book entitled “The G.I.’s Guide to travelling In Europe.” It featured inexpensive travel tips so that even the traveler with little in the way of assets could have fun and discover the essence of wherever they were. This led to Frommer’s first real book, “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day.” The guide featured tips such as stay in small hotels and never get a private bath (that knocks me out right there); eat where the locals eat and never fly first class (that I get). He believed that staying in fancy hotels and traveling like an elitist, removed you from the reality of the place you were visiting and you got sort of a Disneyland view rather than the real view. Consequently, you never really saw the true place you were visiting. He put out his book with an initial printing of 5,000 copies and it kept selling and selling. Meanwhile he went to work for Paul Weiss as a lawyer for six years, each summer spending a month in Europe to update his book. Eventually, he went into writing full time, expanded his book offerings and really helped to change travel by offering the middle class a realistic way to travel round the world. He also expanded into U.S. Cities. He sold his company to Simon & Schuster, who sold it to John Wiley & Sons, who sold it to Google, who sold it to Frommer. Frommer’s guides, to cities all over the world, have sold more than 75 million copies. Competition from the likes of Rick Steves and internet sites like Yelp and Trip Advisor have changed the way people research travel but for me, and I am sure many like me, I like to sink my teeth in a good, descriptive book or two before I visit a foreign city and Frommer’s is usually one of the guides I purchase. Bon voyage.

There was a time when you wanted to get something from the hardware store that you went to the local merchant, got what you needed, and quickly went on your way. For me, it was Square Hardware in Astoria, where every Christmas they would put a neat train setup in one of their store windows. Today when I want a piece of hardware, I go to Home Depot, or Lowes, and wander the aisles aimlessly looking for the item that I want, which they may or may not have, and waste untold time searching for my item because sales assistance in those places is long gone. More times than not, I find myself coming back to my house and ordering it from Amazon. All of this, by the way, totally lacks the human interaction and service I used to get with the local hardware store. Oh how I miss Square Hardware. Anyway, the reason I write this is because this month, Bernie Marcus, one of the founders of Home Depot, died at 95. Don’t get me wrong, I do not hate Home Depot. When I bought my first house, I spent more time there than probably anywhere else in the world. I bought everything. When a new Home Depot opened nearer to my house, I rejoiced. It can be a do-it-yourselfer’s paradise, but it can also be a cursed place where you can’t find the most mundane piece to fix your faucet. I have a real love-hate relationship with it. Anyway, this is about Mr. Marcus and not me. Not really, but I have to say that for cover. Mr. Marcus was born in Newark and attended Rutgers University where he obtained a pharmacy degree. He had been accepted into Harvard Medical School but couldn’t afford the $10,000 that was required to go so he went to work at a hardware chain, Handy Dandy, where he met Arthur Blank who would become one of his partners in Home Depot, along with Wall Street financier, Ken Langone. Mr. Marcus rose to be Handy Dandy’s president and Mr. Blank was his operations guy. Mr. Marcus had talked with both Mr. Blank and Mr. Langone about how he thought a big warehouse type hardware store which purchased directly from manufacturers could work on a smaller profit margin than a company like Handy Dandy because the volume would make up the difference. In 1972, both Messrs. Blank and Marcus were fired from Handy Dandy. Mr. Marcus called up his friend Langone to commiserate and Langone said it was the best thing that happened to him and they set out to start Home Depot with $2 million that Mr. Langone raised. That became the juggernaut that today is 2,300 stores with $150 billion in annual sales. That’s a lot of home repairs. One thing that Mr. Marcus (and presumably his partners) wanted to do was to treat their employees better than they were treated at Handy Dandy. They paid better than minimum wage and gave stock options to employees. Thus, more than 3,000 of Home Depot’s original employees from sales associates on the floor to secretaries, became millionaires while Mr. Marcus and his partners became billionaires. Mr. Marcus retired from the company in 2002 and administered the Marcus Foundation which has donated over $2 billion to causes that Mr. Marcus supports. If only they put some trains in the window at Christmas…

Finally, I am probably able to write this on my computer because Bill Gates took what was a foundational and free programming language, BASIC (Beginners All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), and turned it into the juggernaut that is Microsoft. Thomas Kurtz, the inventor of the BASIC language (along with John Kemeny and four Dartmouth students), hit delete this month at 96. Straight up, Kurtz had nothing to do with Gates and made no fortune from his work. It was just one of the foundations of computing that people like Gates and Jobs took to the stratosphere. Dartmouth, as Kurtz employer, held the copyright but let it be used for free because computers were then in their infancy and people had thoughts about furthering intelligence and not just making money. What a concept. It was a time when places like Dartmouth had one computer (about the size of a bus) and you had to reserve time if you wanted to use it. There were other languages such as FORTRAN and the like, but his was, as the name suggests, basic, and you could learn to use it in a two-hour course, making it more accessible to the masses. Kurtz was, I suspect, your pretty boring math PhD (got it from Princeton, not known as a party school), who worked at Dartmouth, not known a party school, so there are no salacious, drug fueled , Diddy, “Freak-Off” stories to tell here. His hope in perfecting BASIC was to give people access to computers and interest them in their use. Imagine that. For his transformative efforts, he was awarded the Computer Pioneer Award by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), and was named a fellow in the Association for Computing Machinery. In the words of his program: STOP.

The last surviving Buffalo Soldier, army regiments made up exclusively of Black Americans who served largely on the Western frontier, Robert Dixon, left us at 103. Formed in 1866, the Bufalo Soldiers fought in the West because Easterners, especially, Southerners, would not countenance Blacks in any role not subservient to them. In 1948, President Truman desegregated the army (well, sort of), and that was the end of the Buffalo soldiers. They were known, not only for their heroism, but also for their horsemanship. Buffalo Soldier’s, Like Mr. Dixon, taught horsemanship to the cadets at West Point. Mr. Dixon was born and raised in New York and joined the army in 1941. He spent most of his career at West Point. He never much talked about his exploits but did return to the Academy when he was 101 to visit the statute to the Buffalo Soldiers that had been erected in 2021. According to his New York Times Obit, when he went to get up from his chair, people scampered to help him but he shooed them away, got up by himself, walked to the monument and proudly saluted it. After the army, Mr. Dixon worked for IBM and was a Baptist minister for some 36 years at the Mount Cavalry Baptist Church near Albany. Buffalo Soldier. Dreadlock Rasta.

Hopefully the tryptophan has worn off and you can begin to gear up for all that is between now and the year’s-end. Be safe at all those parties because you don’t want to wind up being written about in something like this.