Obituaries for 2017

[Free Vulcan]

We're huge Ron White fans, too.

RW in the first Blue Collar comedy tour had the funniest monologue I've ever heard. One of my favorite bits:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRmmIVnjqfQ

[EasyAce]

RIP one of the first men in baseball to come public and clean about struggles with mental illness:

Jimmy Piersall dies after monthslong illness

His first autobiography, Fear Strikes Out, was made into a film starring Anthony Perkins as Piersall
and Karl Malden as his over-demanding father. Perkins made a credible Piersall on screen, but trust me
when I tell you the film barely did the book justice.

[musiclady]

RIP one of the first men in baseball to come public and clean about struggles with mental illness:

Jimmy Piersall dies after monthslong illness

His first autobiography, Fear Strikes Out, was made into a film starring Anthony Perkins as Piersall
and Karl Malden as his over-demanding father. Perkins made a credible Piersall on screen, but trust me
when I tell you the film barely did the book justice.

I had a Jimmy Piersall baseball card, and my Mom threw it out. 

I never read the book, but saw the film and knew the story.  He battled, that's for sure.

[EasyAce]

I had a Jimmy Piersall baseball card, and my Mom threw it out. 

I never read the book, but saw the film and knew the story.  He battled, that's for sure.

@musiclady
I found the book on the rack in a drugstore for a quarter. That was after I knew the story---not through the film,
but through a book Mickey Mantle put his name on called The Quality of Courage, which had a full chapter
on Piersall. (After his recovery, Piersall once pulled a home run Mantle hit back with a spectacular catch; Mantle
admitted he kicked about a ton of dirt out of the infield after that catch and quoted an unnamed sportswriter
as writing, "In seventeen years of covering this game I never saw a catch like that.")

I had a father somewhat similar to Piersall's, maybe not so harsh a personality overall but just as impossibly
demanding when it came to things he assumed I should know how to do but were things you needed to be
taught. (Among other things, my father assumed a strong boy could handle himself in a fight; it
never got programmed into his software that all the strength in the world was useless if you didn't know
what to do with it; you can take down a stronger guy than yourself if he doesn't know what he's doing
against you, and I didn't know, and my father was stubborn enough not to teach me, and he was also
fool enough to respond to any time I lost a fight---which was all the time because I didn't know what to
do with my strength or my fists and he wouldn't teach me---it would be nothing compared to the beatings
I got from him afterward.)

Let's just say I paid a price for not knowing things my father was foolish enough to believe a boy
was supposed to know by instinct, and that the price I paid for that became compounded with usurious
interest when my father died seven months after my tenth birthday.

Piersall spent part of 1963 as a New York Met. He hit his 100th career home run as a Met---and cracked
up the fans in the Polo Grounds (where the Mets played their first two seasons awaiting Shea Stadium's
completion) by backpedaling around the bases. Even the Phillies (off whom he hit the bomb) laughed.

[Sanguine]

@musiclady
I found the book on the rack in a drugstore for a quarter. That was after I knew the story---not through the film,
but through a book Mickey Mantle put his name on called The Quality of Courage, which had a full chapter
on Piersall. (After his recovery, Piersall once pulled a home run Mantle hit back with a spectacular catch; Mantle
admitted he kicked about a ton of dirt out of the infield after that catch and quoted an unnamed sportswriter
as writing, "In seventeen years of covering this game I never saw a catch like that.")

I had a father somewhat similar to Piersall's, maybe not so harsh a personality overall but just as impossibly
demanding when it came to things he assumed I should know how to do but were things you needed to be
taught. (Among other things, my father assumed a strong boy could handle himself in a fight; it
never got programmed into his software that all the strength in the world was useless if you didn't know
what to do with it; you can take down a stronger guy than yourself if he doesn't know what he's doing
against you, and I didn't know, and my father was stubborn enough not to teach me, and he was also
fool enough to respond to any time I lost a fight---which was all the time because I didn't know what to
do with my strength or my fists and he wouldn't teach me---it would be nothing compared to the beatings
I got from him afterward.)

Let's just say I paid a price for not knowing things my father was foolish enough to believe a boy
was supposed to know by instinct, and that the price I paid for that became compounded with usurious
interest when my father died seven months after my tenth birthday.

Yes, I am blessed in that my father has lived long enough for us to come to terms and understand and forgive.  On both sides.  It leaves a missing piece when you don't have the chance to do that. 

However, it sounds like you have done a great job with what you had.  God bless you.

[Cyber Liberty]

I was #3 boy, so it was pretty much assumed I wouldn't amount to anything.  What I know I learned on my own. 

[EasyAce]

However, it sounds like you have done a great job with what you had.  God bless you.

@Sanguine
If only that were true. I ended up dealing with my own mental issues for too many years to follow.
Only ten years ago was I able to begin coming to complete terms and begin an earnest recovery.
And I'm not sure it's all that complete; I still have my moments, if not hours, of anguish. Particularly
since, as of 1998 (when my younger brother was killed), I'm the only surviving member of my
childhood household. As of August, I'll also have outlived both my parents and my younger brother.

I plod along in my quiet way; I'm not retired by any means, but I have worked since as a free lance
editor/writer (I was a professional journalist in small city/regional daily newspapers, daily news
radio, trade, and early Internet journalism, after a brief career as an Air Force intelligence analyst)
and blues musician/arranger/composer. I've found a peace in my work and in my life now that was
alien to me previously. But I thank you for your kind words, my friend.

[Idiot]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfTyEtVIe84

Yep, and this, imho, was one of his best skits.

 

I loved Tim Conway.  We made a special trip to see him in Branson several years back.  He replayed this very skit....  He told the crowd at the beginning of the show that he was only in Branson, because he had gambling debts from the horse track, or otherwise he wouldn't be there.  He was serious...and no one laughed.  It was odd...after that no one in the crowd really laughed at anything.  He performed for 45 min....it was just really sad and really not funny.  I've never been more disappointed.....   Since then I'll turn the channel if I see him on.

[Sanguine]

@Sanguine
If only that were true. I ended up dealing with my own mental issues for too many years to follow.
Only ten years ago was I able to begin coming to complete terms and begin an earnest recovery.
And I'm not sure it's all that complete; I still have my moments, if not hours, of anguish. I plod
along in my quiet way; I'm not retired by any means, but I have worked since as a free lance
editor/writer (I was a professional journalist in small city/regional daily newspapers, daily news
radio, trade, and early Internet journalism, after a brief career as an Air Force intelligence
analyst) and blues musician/arranger/composer. I've found a peace in my work now that was
alien to me previously. But I thank you for your kind words, my friend.

Ace, I've been on this earth for quite a while, and one thing I've learned is that you can only work with what you have.  When you have had some time and acquired a bit of wisdom, you can work with that, but until then you have to work towards that wisdom.  Don't ever be ashamed at how long it took, or the effort that you had to put into it.  It takes as long as it takes, friend.

[EasyAce]

Ace, I've been on this earth for quite a while, and one thing I've learned is that you can only work with what you have.  When you have had some time and acquired a bit of wisdom, you can work with that, but until then you have to work towards that wisdom.  Don't ever be ashamed at how long it took, or the effort that you had to put into it.  It takes as long as it takes, friend.

@Sanguine
You deserve a hug for that.

Or . . .

[Sanguine]

@Sanguine
You deserve a hug for that.

Or . . .

Wine, please.   

[EasyAce]

Wine, please.   

@Sanguine
Deal!

[Machiavelli]

trust me when I tell you the film barely did the book justice.

Agreed, @EasyAce

I read the book several times and saw the movie several times.

[musiclady]

@musiclady
I found the book on the rack in a drugstore for a quarter. That was after I knew the story---not through the film,
but through a book Mickey Mantle put his name on called The Quality of Courage, which had a full chapter
on Piersall. (After his recovery, Piersall once pulled a home run Mantle hit back with a spectacular catch; Mantle
admitted he kicked about a ton of dirt out of the infield after that catch and quoted an unnamed sportswriter
as writing, "In seventeen years of covering this game I never saw a catch like that.")

I had a father somewhat similar to Piersall's, maybe not so harsh a personality overall but just as impossibly
demanding when it came to things he assumed I should know how to do but were things you needed to be
taught. (Among other things, my father assumed a strong boy could handle himself in a fight; it
never got programmed into his software that all the strength in the world was useless if you didn't know
what to do with it; you can take down a stronger guy than yourself if he doesn't know what he's doing
against you, and I didn't know, and my father was stubborn enough not to teach me, and he was also
fool enough to respond to any time I lost a fight---which was all the time because I didn't know what to
do with my strength or my fists and he wouldn't teach me---it would be nothing compared to the beatings
I got from him afterward.)

Let's just say I paid a price for not knowing things my father was foolish enough to believe a boy
was supposed to know by instinct, and that the price I paid for that became compounded with usurious
interest when my father died seven months after my tenth birthday.

Piersall spent part of 1963 as a New York Met. He hit his 100th career home run as a Met---and cracked
up the fans in the Polo Grounds (where the Mets played their first two seasons awaiting Shea Stadium's
completion) by backpedaling around the bases. Even the Phillies (off whom he hit the bomb) laughed.

Man, I'm sorry to hear about your rough childhood, @EasyAce .

The advice that @Sanguine gave you says it all.

You have done amazingly well with yourself, my friend!

[Machiavelli]

@
I had a father somewhat similar to Piersall's, maybe not so harsh a personality overall but just as impossibly
demanding when it came to things he assumed I should know how to do but were things you needed to be
taught. (Among other things, my father assumed a strong boy could handle himself in a fight; it
never got programmed into his software that all the strength in the world was useless if you didn't know
what to do with it; you can take down a stronger guy than yourself if he doesn't know what he's doing
against you, and I didn't know, and my father was stubborn enough not to teach me, and he was also
fool enough to respond to any time I lost a fight---which was all the time because I didn't know what to
do with my strength or my fists and he wouldn't teach me---it would be nothing compared to the beatings
I got from him afterward.)

Let's just say I paid a price for not knowing things my father was foolish enough to believe a boy
was supposed to know by instinct, and that the price I paid for that became compounded with usurious
interest when my father died seven months after my tenth birthday.

I'm so sorry, @EasyAce

[andy58-in-nh]

@EasyAce

Thank you for sharing those experiences - that could not have been well, easy. 

You have friends here. I'm quite certain many of us have had our own demons to fight. I know for damned certain that I have. Depression is a vicious beast, as I found out. I was diagnosed about a year ago. I haven't ever shared that here, but I am much, much better now... I needed help, and got it.

Best wishes -

AK

[Machiavelli]

@Piersall spent part of 1963 as a New York Met. He hit his 100th career home run as a Met---and cracked
up the fans in the Polo Grounds (where the Mets played their first two seasons awaiting Shea Stadium's
completion) by backpedaling around the bases. Even the Phillies (off whom he hit the bomb) laughed.

@EasyAce

I remember that.

Do you also remember that stunt he pulled with the Senators during a spring training game?

Piersall was the third base runner and the bases were loaded. Chuck Hinton came up and hit a grand slammer.

Instead of heading on home, Piersall waited for the other three runners to catch up with him, and then led them home, finishing with a mad slide across the plate.

[EasyAce]

@EasyAce

I remember that.

Do you also remember that stunt he pulled with the Senators during a spring training game?

Piersall was the third base runner and the bases were loaded. Chuck Hinton came up and hit a grand slammer.

Instead of heading on home, Piersall waited for the other three runners to catch up with him, and then led them home, finishing with a mad slide across the plate.

@Machiavelli
I didn't remember that one but that sounds classic!

[EasyAce]

@musiclady
@Machiavelli
@andy58-in-nh

Thank you so much, my friends!

[Smokin Joe]

@musiclady
I found the book on the rack in a drugstore for a quarter. That was after I knew the story---not through the film,
but through a book Mickey Mantle put his name on called The Quality of Courage, which had a full chapter
on Piersall. (After his recovery, Piersall once pulled a home run Mantle hit back with a spectacular catch; Mantle
admitted he kicked about a ton of dirt out of the infield after that catch and quoted an unnamed sportswriter
as writing, "In seventeen years of covering this game I never saw a catch like that.")

I had a father somewhat similar to Piersall's, maybe not so harsh a personality overall but just as impossibly
demanding when it came to things he assumed I should know how to do but were things you needed to be
taught. (Among other things, my father assumed a strong boy could handle himself in a fight; it
never got programmed into his software that all the strength in the world was useless if you didn't know
what to do with it; you can take down a stronger guy than yourself if he doesn't know what he's doing
against you, and I didn't know, and my father was stubborn enough not to teach me, and he was also
fool enough to respond to any time I lost a fight---which was all the time because I didn't know what to
do with my strength or my fists and he wouldn't teach me---it would be nothing compared to the beatings
I got from him afterward.)

Let's just say I paid a price for not knowing things my father was foolish enough to believe a boy
was supposed to know by instinct, and that the price I paid for that became compounded with usurious
interest when my father died seven months after my tenth birthday.

Piersall spent part of 1963 as a New York Met. He hit his 100th career home run as a Met---and cracked
up the fans in the Polo Grounds (where the Mets played their first two seasons awaiting Shea Stadium's
completion) by backpedaling around the bases. Even the Phillies (off whom he hit the bomb) laughed.

From reading down thread, it sounds like you have done well from a rough start. Keep at it my friend, you have accomplished much, and have my respect.

[EasyAce]

From reading down thread, it sounds like you have done well from a rough start. Keep at it my friend, you have accomplished much, and have my respect.

@Smokin Joe
 

[goatprairie]

@musiclady
I found the book on the rack in a drugstore for a quarter. That was after I knew the story---not through the film,
but through a book Mickey Mantle put his name on called The Quality of Courage, which had a full chapter
on Piersall. (After his recovery, Piersall once pulled a home run Mantle hit back with a spectacular catch; Mantle
admitted he kicked about a ton of dirt out of the infield after that catch and quoted an unnamed sportswriter
as writing, "In seventeen years of covering this game I never saw a catch like that.")

I had a father somewhat similar to Piersall's, maybe not so harsh a personality overall but just as impossibly
demanding when it came to things he assumed I should know how to do but were things you needed to be
taught. (Among other things, my father assumed a strong boy could handle himself in a fight; it
never got programmed into his software that all the strength in the world was useless if you didn't know
what to do with it; you can take down a stronger guy than yourself if he doesn't know what he's doing
against you, and I didn't know, and my father was stubborn enough not to teach me, and he was also
fool enough to respond to any time I lost a fight---which was all the time because I didn't know what to
do with my strength or my fists and he wouldn't teach me---it would be nothing compared to the beatings
I got from him afterward.)

Let's just say I paid a price for not knowing things my father was foolish enough to believe a boy
was supposed to know by instinct, and that the price I paid for that became compounded with usurious
interest when my father died seven months after my tenth birthday.

Piersall spent part of 1963 as a New York Met. He hit his 100th career home run as a Met---and cracked
up the fans in the Polo Grounds (where the Mets played their first two seasons awaiting Shea Stadium's
completion) by backpedaling around the bases. Even the Phillies (off whom he hit the bomb) laughed.

Fathers as depicted on tv fifty years were quite different than the ones in real life. I was (and mostly still am) inept with fixing things mechanically.
One time when I was about twelve or thirteen I attempted to fix my bicycle. The chain had fallen off or something similar. So my father walked by, and I asked him for some help or advice.  He looked at me for about ten or fifteen seconds, and then he told me nobody showed him anything, why should he show me.  Then he puffed on his pipe and walked away.
His theory was if you couldn't learn things on your own, tough. He wasn't going to help. So out of my three brothers and myself only one of us learned to do carpentry, something my father was a whiz at but didn't teach us about either.
Likewise, my mother never showed my three sisters how to cook.  As a result, none of them learned much on their own, and their husbands were much better cooks than they were.
But that still doesn't stop a person from learning on their own if they have the desire.
So would I rather have had a demanding father like Piersall's or one like my father who just wasn't much interested in anything you did and didn't want to help even when asked? (My father also had a terrible temper.) 
I don't know.  My siblings and myself managed to make it through life without screwing up too much....in fact, most of my siblings became very successful to the point of most of them being very well off.
So even without the ultra-demanding father, would Piersall have turned out different? Who knows? I know I had my own faults which had nothing to do with whatever my parents did or didn't do to me.  Nevertheless, I don't like to see children abused by parents.  As bad a temper as my father had, he never beat us.  Yelling and screaming was his preferred method of discipline. An occasional clout here and there, but nothing like the beatings you were subjected to by your father.
My view is if you can make it adulthood with the knowledge of what's right and what's wrong, everything that happens after that is on you.

[EasyAce]

Fathers as depicted on tv fifty years were quite different than the ones in real life. I was (and mostly still am) inept with fixing things mechanically.
One time when I was about twelve or thirteen I attempted to fix my bicycle. The chain had fallen off or something similar. So my father walked by, and I asked him for some help or advice.  He looked at me for about ten or fifteen seconds, and then he told me nobody showed him anything, why should he show me.  Then he puffed on his pipe and walked away.
His theory was if you couldn't learn things on your own, tough. He wasn't going to help. So out of my three brothers and myself only one of us learned to do carpentry, something my father was a whiz at but didn't teach us about either.
Likewise, my mother never showed my three sisters how to cook.  As a result, none of them learned much on their own, and their husbands were much better cooks than they were.
But that still doesn't stop a person from learning on their own if they have the desire.

It doesn't stop a person, of course, but when the ones you depend on in your childhood show that kind of
disinterest, it may take you a long time before you feel confident enough to try to learn those things on
your own.

(p.s. I'm one of those men who learned to cook early enough; I learned a few tricks from my mother and
my grandmother and a favourite aunt, and I taught myself a few tricks on my own later on.)

So would I rather have had a demanding father like Piersall's or one like my father who just wasn't much interested in anything you did and didn't want to help even when asked? (My father also had a terrible temper.) 
I don't know.  My siblings and myself managed to make it through life without screwing up too much....in fact, most of my siblings became very successful to the point of most of them being very well off.
So even without the ultra-demanding father, would Piersall have turned out different? Who knows? I know I had my own faults which had nothing to do with whatever my parents did or didn't do to me.  Nevertheless, I don't like to see children abused by parents.  As bad a temper as my father had, he never beat us.  Yelling and screaming was his preferred method of discipline. An occasional clout here and there, but nothing like the beatings you were subjected to by your father.
My view is if you can make it adulthood with the knowledge of what's right and what's wrong, everything that happens after that is on you.

A parent who is demanding without teaching or encouraging is his or her own kind of abusive parent.

For me the tragedy was what I learned years later from the single most unimpeachable source I know: my father's younger
sister, one of my favourite aunts. She told me what I suspected but could never quite confirm: my parents wanted children
in the worst way possible only to learn the hard way that they had no patience for raising children, that they had no patience
for children being children. Aside from the fight issue, my parents didn't know the difference between real disobedience or
misbehaviour and children just being children. It was one thing to be spanked for disobeying or really misbehaving, but
it was something else entirely to be spanked for an honest human mistake. Because the flip side was that when they were
good, they were parents you wished every kid had. (My father in particular was generous beyond belief; he even got me
aboard an airplane for the first time when he told his bosses at his insurance firm he wouldn't make a trip to Virginia
unless he could take me. It was the best time I ever had with my father; he knocked his business off in two days and
we spent three happy days bumming around Richmond and Petersburg.)

The scar from a babyhood stomach surgery was nothing compared to the scars in my head and heart. But I managed to
make my way through it after several decades and no small heartbreak. And I enjoy life so much more now.

[Gefn]

@EasyAce

Thank you for sharing those experiences - that could not have been well, easy. 

You have friends here. I'm quite certain many of us have had our own demons to fight. I know for damned certain that I have. Depression is a vicious beast, as I found out. I was diagnosed about a year ago. I haven't ever shared that here, but I am much, much better now... I needed help, and got it.

Best wishes -

AK

@andy58-in-nh
@EasyAce

I’ve suffered from depression  since adolescence and I wouldn’t wish it on my own worst enemy. Bless you both for handling it so well. I can’t tell you how much I admire you both for surviving through it.

[EasyAce]

@andy58-in-nh
@EasyAce

I’ve suffered from depression  since adolescence and I wouldn’t wish it on my own worst enemy. Bless you both for handling it so well. I can’t tell you how much I admire you both for surviving through it.

Thank you, @Freya