Jim Nabors, RIP

Thu, 30 Nov 2017 00:15:31 GMT

I was hugely bummed to learn of Nabors' death.

I enjoyed the characters he played, and of course, particularly enjoyed his depiction of the Gomer Pyle character's adventures in the Marines. He is, if memory serves, one of a very few people to have been made an "honorary" Marine.

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RIP, Glenn Campbell

Thu, 10 Aug 2017 03:55:51 GMT

There was a time, several years ago, when I was constructing a set of names to be used in a memory system I was working on, I needed a male singer whose work lay in, roughly, the country–pop-folk spectrum, and I gave serious consideration to the name Neil Diamond, as the name fit certain phonetic criteria I'd settled on.

The only problem was, I could not recall a single song of Diamond's off the top of my head, and I had no idea what Diamond's face looked like, so including him in a memory system didn't make much sense.

So I ditched the phonetic criteria for this single instance only and settled on... Glenn Campbell, whose music I considered to lie in roughly the same spectrum (if I am mistaken, so be it), and more important, whose Wichita Lineman was securely burned into my consciousness because back when my Marine Corps MOS was 2511 (wireman, in my era; today, it's been changed to 0612, field wireman), I trained to acquire pole climbing skill—one in which, in the end, I was proud to have gained experience—and Campbell's song sort of became a "mascot" tune for me, linked in my mind to that skill. And so, in system, my image for number 27 is the fella wearing rhinestone-studded jeans (Rhinestone Cowboy was another of Campbell's hits) while singing, playing a guitar, and wearing climbers.

I enjoyed quite a number of Campbell's other songs, too, including Gentle On My Mind and By The Time I Get To Phoenix in particular.

Sorry to see you go, Glen.

Memento Mori...

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AlexPGP's Corner

Jim Nabors, RIP

RIP, Glenn Campbell