An earnest dedication

I’ve been thinking of the best way to sum up what Betty Page’s death meant to me and had just settled on a theme when I found a notice from the Rodenberry family that Majel Barrett passed away today. This is getting to be too much for me to process. So many people I’ve met are passing away this year.

Betty Page just reinforced the loss of Dave Stevens, two beautiful people who gave so much of them selves and asked so little in return. Forry Ackerman and Majel Barrett where larger than life icon that shaped the world in ways we will never know. Steve Gerber an ‘irascible’ gadfly who shook up comic not only with his writing but with his activism. Frank Thomas, last of Disney’s nine old men, became a metaphor of the state of the medium he helped create as well as Bill Melendez who breath life into the Charles Shultz’ Peanuts Gang and gave snoopy a voice.

There are so many more but it all just becomes words, the words become noise, and the noise is drowned out by the next rolling billboard. Life is for the Living. We have more important things to worry about; jobs, families, health. Who am I kidding; the next reality show will erase your memories like so many whiteboards. Did you catch that? “Catch what?” many of you will think but the old fogies got it right way. How many of you remember blackboards. Out with the old in with the new is the mantra in our fast paced lives. White boards are more sanitary than there dusty predecessors. Oh but you can’t produce the same variety or art on that slick laminated surface as you could on the deceptively smooth slate surface. You can streak, smudge and scrawl on that dark canvas with vibrant pastels that would never show on the pail young upstart. Many master pieces was lost to the teacher’s eraser to reside the recesses of the mind.
That is were all these people live now; in the “Remember when’s” and “Did you knows” of late night gad fests. I’ve decide that this is not a fitting tribute to people who shaped us as much as any parent or teacher ever did. I’ve this moment resolved to gather the works of the people who have passed. Not to preserve, there are groups much better equipped than I am. but to share. A few minutes here and there, with family and friends to rededicate them to our memories, reflecting on why they were more than just names in the credits. It’s the least I can do after all they’ve done for me.