R.I.P - 2014

The premise here is not to compile an exhaustive list but to note the individuals who had a significant influence on me (a typical baby boomer) or provided me with great entertainment value.

There is a road, no simple highway

Between the dawn and the dark of night

And if you go no one may follow

That path is for your steps alone

“Harold was clearly the most successful comedy writer-director of all time,” said Tim Kazurinsky, who followed Ramis at Second City and later became his friend. “The number of films that he has made that were successful, that were blockbusters, nobody comes close. Even in light in of that, he was more successful as a human being.” I agree with Tim, Ramis was simply the best of our generation.

Although I was not as taken with "The Graduate" as most people, the film was responsible for me taking the summer of 1984 off to attend Berkeley as a full-time student - to hasten by progress to a MBA degree. It was the best summer of my life, bicycling to and from classes along Telegraph Avenue and studying alone on a small balcony off the fifth floor of the business school; a spot with a wonderful view of the Bay. It connected me forever with Cal's campus, even more than the year (1979) I had spent living on Channing Way - just a block from the stadium.

Joe was the face of Woodstock and a reminder of how close I came to making an unauthorized trip to the festival in my parent's 1967 Corvair, a lifelong regret as I was in central New York that weekend. I console myself with the admission that I would either have turned back when the traffic congestion stalled my progress or would have seriously damaged the car and had to immediately enlist in the Army (along with having to listen for several decades to parental lectures about my irresponsibility).

.Wallach was a boomer sleeper; most identified with "The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly", but we older boomers also remember his equally excellent work in "Baby Doll", "The Misfits", and "The Magnificent Seven".

Besides performing as the house band on "Where the Action Is" beginning in 1965, Paul Revere and the Raiders appeared on Clark's later "Happening" shows as well as "The Ed Sullivan Show," "The Tonight Show" and as themselves on the "Batman" TV show in 1966. The group was a particular favorite of mine in the mid-1960's.