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A quarterly occasion to remember the friends and the famous who are no longer with us–
Friends and acquaintances
Anne Burke, whom we knew from both Christ Church, Central City, and from the Recovery Community; Anne and her late husband Ed would often host us at various events or when they’d come to Kearney. Much of her life was spent either as a registered nurse and children’s and veteran’s hospitals or as a “hand” on the farm she grew up on or the farm/ranch she and Ed owned.
Doris Envick, whom I last saw, as at our age we so often do, in the waiting room at a doctor’s office; her husband Don was a department chair at UNK, and the chance meeting renewed a friendship from the years we chaired together.
Gus Katrouzos, “Mr. Coney Island,” Grand Island’s go to place on 3rd Street, who could (and would) stop and tell you family history, city history, history of the Orthodox Church, even as getting the crowd seated was on pause for a moment, son George now behind the counter, a little shrine to his mother by the wall across from the till…soon to be joined.
Donna Livingston, whom I did not know personally except as a friend of her son Dave, whose concern for her was constant even when he, himself, was hospitalized.
Doug Lund, of the lab named for him at UNK, of the Doug Lund DNA Day, of a long-standing career in the UNK Biology Department, and of a long-standing (well sitting) poker group.
Virginia McKinney, longtime and faithful parishioners at St. Luke’s. She and her late husband Wayne took us out to dinner and gave us a drive-around Kearney when we first came here…our first meal at the sadly now gone but historic Bico’s Café. Her parents, the Bodinsons, ran a hardware store downtown, and the McKinney’s gave St. Luke’s a memorial to them. We join Mary Kommers and her family in mourning the loss.
Robert Snow, Deacon, Diocese of Nebraska, who served for a decade alongside his wife Ellen in the Dominican Republic; among many fine DIONEB deacons, none so much exemplified the order as did Bob Snow. For many years, he channeled my honoraria from weddings and funerals into scholarships for the DR school at his mission.
Ellie Thober, priest in the Diocese of Nebraska serving Columbus and North Platte, her sister Elaine the long-time secretary at St. Stephen’s, Grand Island, and her brother Mel, also a priest (Iowa) and our friend as undergraduates at UNL, married to another Ellie.
Names in the News
Dick Butkus, Illinois, the Bears, they were mourning at the fighting Illini’s game this fall with Nebraska; Russell Morris tells the story of our former School Superintendent telling about his student days, playing against Dick Butkus…not a position to which you wanted to be called!
Diane Feinstein, feisty Senator from California and longest serving woman senator in history, who led several major committees and wrote lots of significant legislation to protect children, nature, and technology; a long illness sadly made it hard for her always to be present for a vote, her death welcomed only because it meant her successor in her Senate seat would be there to vote when needed.
Michael Gambon, Sir Michael at that; who played Albus Dumbledore in six of the eight Harry Potter movies, and countless rolls in everything from Othello to the Singing Detective. He eventually had to retire for the same reason many of us don’t strut the stage anymore—his memory wasn’t sure enough not to stumble over the lines.
Louise Gluck, former Poet Laureate, who despite her audience-drawing position, felt that all poetry is read or heard by one person at a time; and I’d add that in reading and hearing, we are changed and so, if we read or hear a poem a second time, it is no longer the same poem to us because we are not the same reader.
Illya Kuryakin, sorry I meant Donald Mallard, well one and the same as actor David McCallum; does it seem ironic that, although a Scot, he was once married to Jill Ireland? He also cut several musical and spoken-word albums, including a reading of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind and the Willows. This time it really was a Great Escape from what was coming after 90.
Matthew Perry, a.k.a. Chandler Bing, who lived to make people laugh and didn’t live long enough, and with his friends made our generation wonder, in Nancy’s words, “why we didn’t live like that.” A hit show among our students in China in 2005.
Raymond Redington, a.k.a. James Spader—from the moment he knelt in the nation’s capital, like a cleric before his ordination, and on to the tender scenes leading up to his matador-like goring by a bull, in a peaceful field near Seville, where a barber was well-known for having helped the authorities solve a crime—Jon Bokenkamp’s hero, in good seasons and bad, witnessed script writers who had imagination and had fueled it by wide-spread reading. In the Blacklist as in Boston Legal, by a mere expression, Bader could be villain or saint.
Brooks Robinson, who came out of Arkansas in the 1950’s, was picked up by the Baltimore Orioles, and just now left for good. If you divided players into the sour and the sweet, Brooks Robinson would have been at the top of the sweet list.
Richard Roundtree, let shrill voices shout “Shaft,” but in my mind most associated with “Roots.” One of the breakthrough Black actors of his times.
Suzanne Somers, of “Three’s Company,” now finds herself in even better company and where there is healing for what could not be healed on earth.
capeek 