Traditionally, the media posts the list of famous people who passed in the preceding year. It feels a bit different today, I think, because some of the following were long time passengers on Spaceship Earth with yours truly, people whose performances, speeches, and presence accompanied me on this long flight over seventy-six years. In no particular order they are Pele, Barbara Walters, Pope Benedict, Don Wilson, P.J. O’Rourke, Madeleine Albright, Bobby Rydell, Margaret Keane, Sonny Barger. James Caan, Ivana Trump, Claes Oldenburg, Bill Russell, Gaylord Perry, Bruce Sutter, Vin Scully, Olivia Newton-John, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sidney Poitier, Loretta Lynn, Christine McVie, Barbara Walters, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jean Luc-Godard, and her majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.
I photographed two of them. Sonny Barger, the President of the Hells Angels, is pictured on the right. He’s sitting on a French Provincial sofa at the Colonial Chapel before Rowdy Rick’s funeral.
Alas, I have lost the photo of Don Wilson and the Ventures.
Jadyne and I were dining at Mustards, a Napa Valley restaurant. She turned and saw people who were waiting to be seated. She said, “That man looks just like Sidney Poitier.” I responded, “That’s because he is Sidney Poitier.” I saw Margaret Keane’s paintings of big-eyed children in North Beach art galleries, Madeline Albright’s brooches on display at the DeYoung Museum, was enamored of Jerry Lee Lewis’s music, Claes Oldenburg’s sculptures, and Gaylord Perry’s spitball.
Seeing all these people leave the spaceship takes away a little of the fear that I have when the spaceship comes to my stop.