I'm a light drinker. The Minute it gets light I start drinking.

[Lord Undies]

Substitute "eater" for "drinker" and you have an old Totie Fields line.  I thought Totie was very funny.  Her type of self-depreciating humor wouldn't work for a fat woman today, but she was great at the time.  Her "workout" when Totie used three fingers to repeatedly pat under her chin, and then show how thin her three fingers were was a classic.

Totie died at the age of 48 in 1978.  She died from complication of her disease of diabetes

Fields was plagued with health problems the last two years of her life. In April 1976, her left leg was amputated above the knee when surgery to remove a blood clot failed. In June 1977, to the astonishment of her fans, Fields starred in the Home Box Office special series, Standing Room Only, beginning her show seated in a wheelchair.[2] As the audience welcomed her, she stood up, causing the cheering audience to stand with her. Said Fields: "I've waited all my life to say this... I weigh less than Elizabeth Taylor!" The Old Totie was back and the audience put at ease; if Fields could laugh at her troubles, then it was all right to laugh with her.

While still recovering from the amputation, she suffered two heart attacks. And in October 1977, Fields was diagnosed with breast cancer and her right breast was removed. Nevertheless, Fields continued to perform, incorporating her health problems into her act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totie_Fields

And she could sing!

[youtube=425,350]ixkqVgfAoU0[/youtube]

So, every year, we lose so many people who became a part of our lives through pop culture and the media.

Did any of the high profile deaths this year touch you?

[Sweet Dee]

Did any of the high profile deaths this year touch you?

Paul Newman!  What a loss.  The Sting is one of my fav movies  

[Lord Undies]

Paul Newman!  What a loss.  The Sting is one of my fav movies  

Good one!  Being 54 years old, Paul Newman was certainly a permanent fixture in my life.  And my salads!

Others to consider, by the month:  http://www.einsiders.com/features/columns/jan08obituaries.php

[USA4ME]

There were several notables to mention.

I suppose the bigger names were those like Charlton Heston, William F. Buckley Jr., and Tim Russert.  In the areas of music, there was country singer Eddy Arnold, soul man Isaac Hayes, and blues player Bo Diddley.  I always liked Harvey Korman on the Carol Burnette Show, and Suzanne Pleshette on the Bob Newhart Show.  Lots of sports celebrities who died, but Jim McKay will be missed.  For the women, Yves Saint Laurent died.  And as a resident of NC, our former Senator Jesse Helms passed away this year.

.

[Thor]

The only folks I might miss are Tony Snow, Dr Michael DeBakey, Don Davis (from  Stargate SG-1), Charlton Heston, George Carlin & Arthur C Clarke. The rest are just worm food to me.

[Eupher]

Wow, several I didn't know of at all:

Pete Candoli - anybody who knows anything about jazz knows that Pete and his brother Conte were two of the most sought-after Hollywood studio musicians. Mostly sidemen over the years, their performances on trumpet were highly sought after and coveted. Conte, who died in 2001 also of prostate cancer, played on the set of The Tonight Show under Doc Severinsen for many, many years.

Here's a clip of Pete and Conte trading fours while doing Mancini's theme from Peter Gunn after having been introduced by Steve Allen. Oh, and while you're at it, check out Carl Fontana on trombone - one of the absolute greatest on the horn.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dechpnavTyA[/youtube]

Suzanne Pleshette - wow, dead at 70 of respiratory failure. I always loved her smoky voice.

Roy Scheider - dead of a staph infection at age 75? WTF?

William F. Buckley - arguably one of the greatest conservative thinkers of our time and a master of the English language a la American.

Richard Widmark - died at age 93. Shunned the glitz and glamor of Hollyweird. Are you listening, Britney? Not that you have one millionth of the talent that Widmark had.....

Charlton Heston - aged 84. He'll have a chance to prep St. Peter for Michael Moore's eventual arrival. It won't be pretty.

Dick Martin - you bet your sweet bippy. Dan, Dick said goodnight.

Earle Hagen - composer and whistler of the theme song to "The Andy Griffith Show." I taught that tune to a pet cockatiel who performed it flawlessly.

There are more, but that's enough for now.

[Thor]

Famous people who died this year

[ReardenSteel]

E-mail from my parents sometime back. One of those you don't delete right away I guess.

Ed Freeman

'Ed Freeman... A True Hero'

You're an 18 or 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley, 11-14-1965. LZ Xray , Vietnam . Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 - 1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters to stop coming in.

You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you're not getting out. Your family is 1/2 way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.

Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that s ound of a helicopter, and you look up to see an un-armed Huey, but it doesn't seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on it.

Ed Freeman is coming for you. He's not Medi-Vac, so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come.

He's coming anyway.

And he drops it in, and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board.

Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire, to the Doctors and Nurses.

And, he kept coming back...... 13 more times..... and took about 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have gotten out.

Medal of Honor Recipient Ed Freeman died last Wednesday at the age of 80, in Boise, ID ......May God rest his soul.....

(Oh yeah, Paul Newman died that day too.  I guess you knew that --
He got a lot more press than Ed Freeman.)

Dunno why they had to pick on Newman to make a point lol. I'll miss that guy too.