Category: Deaths & Obits
Willie P Bennett is dead, at home, in Peterborough
I must thank Chipper for bearing me these sad tidings.
Two mornings after Keith was born, Willie P phoned me and asked if he could come see the child, having received word from Paul that his firstborn had arrived.
He showed up reeking of cigarettes and alcohol. My mother, radiating primate female on guard, watched him closely. But it was merely a man lying on our bed and absorbing the experience of being with a tiny newborn child, which he did for the best part of an hour.
I had another anecdote, but I’ll leave it for the memorial service.
One time, Willie P told us a story about how he got an allergic reaction so badly – while on tour – that the hives started going down his throat. With great difficulty he got himself to a hospital in either Edmonton or Calgary and as he sat in the exam room waiting for a doctor, the curtain kept getting pulled back and there’d be another med student standing there goggle-eyed. He or she would say, “They’re RIGHT, you ARE the worst case of hives they’ve ever seen!” and then the curtain would close again.
He wrote a lot – a LOT – of songs, good ones. “Willie’s Diamond Joe” is one of my favourite tunes, and “Why’d I Go Zydeco” is on my playlist. He wrote “Music in your eyes” for a member of Paul’s family. He used to show up at dinner time at Paul’s mum’s place all the time.
In later years he played mandolin. Everything is connected. Rest in peace, Willie the P.
And if I say a single thing about this news report
Everything’s up to date in Kansas City
Including these signs recently welcoming George W. Bush.
The 25th anniversary of the church establishment dinner was yummy fun; I didn’t get there early enough to do the percussion thing. On one hand I feel lousy for not doing what I said, or checking when I was supposed to be there; on the other hand I think I was miserably underrehearsed. Public performing less than two months after you purchase an instrument seems the height of hubris.
I’m in a very strange mood. I’ve come to the realization that there is something I keep doing which is really hurting my mental health, and I’m just trying to figure out how I stop doing it without going crazier than I was to start out with. I think I’ll pour myself another cup of coffee, have a piece of the 85% cocoa chocolate the Luddite insisted on leaving here (“Oh, don’t worry, I have plenty at home”) and contemplate my options. With any luck, daughter Katie will be joining me this afternoon. The urge to kidnap her and do an intervention is urgent, but I think I can manage without doing anything dumb.
One of my LJ buddies was at the church dinner last night. I was thinking, Gosh, we finally get to talk IRL! and then her daughter threw up and they had to leave. For this, she commented wryly, I stuffed them all into their nice clothes (or words to that effect).
My granny is still in a lot of pain, but they found painkillers that work. I light a candle for her, and for the heroic amount of care she’s been getting from her two sons and daughtersinlaw. It makes me shudder to think what old age is like when we have no children, loved ones, or adoptive family to help us.
I light a candle for the folks who went to Nancy’s memorial service yesterday. I hope everybody stayed cheerful and full of happy memories. The grinding hard work of sorting the estate out – I light a big phalanx of candles for that heavy chore.
I made biscotti.
Off to meditate on mental health now.
Happiness is coming home….
…. and having a home to come home to. I hear through the net that a filker (not somebody attending Conflikt) just died in a housefire. If the tributes now pouring in are anything to go by, Greg was much loved and will be much missed. The condo is a write off – the cats didn’t make it out either. I imagine the people left at the con will be pretty much stunned by this. I light a candle for Greg’s surviving family.
I light a candle for someone I know who has suffered a miscarriage.
I light a candle for daughter Katie, who is having a very rough go right now.
I light a candle for my granny, who has needed 24/7 coverage as she recovers from a minor but debilitating ailment.
I light a candle for Lady Miss Banjola and Shaddyr, and hope the rest of the con goes smoothly.
I’m going to be performing at the congregational dinner – again – and this time I’ll be providing percussion, who knew!? I’ve got a busy week coming up.
Suzanne Pleshette has passed away
I know her as being a fixture in tv movies and B films when I was a kid, but the reason I’m fond of her these days is because she provided the voice acting for Yubaba in Spirited Away. A great great piece of voice acting of which I am quite fond.
Death in the family
Jim and Jan, about whom I have written much, have lost a family member. Jan’s mum passed away suddenly this past week. I speak out of my own hopes and fears in saying that it’s better to go fast than slow.
I light a candle for the family.
Candle of memory
The Dorothy Dunnett Readers Association (of which I am a semi active sort of chapter member) is frequently hosted by my friend Janet. It is my sorrowful duty to report that her mother Millie, with whom I have had a number of entertaining chats, succumbed to heart failure during breast cancer treatment. She was an awesome old lady and will be much missed by her large family and circle of friends. I was talking to her not two months ago.
Love each other while you can.
comedy/candle
Kopper, pleading “I’ve heard those jokes so many times I could type them in my sleep, and I’m bagged” did not join me and Daughter Katie. We had a good time despite this sad gap in our complement, and it was good to see that the Laff Riot Girls were in fine form. So I am in a damned fine mood; one episode of Deadwood more and then I’m off ta bed. It made me want to write more comedy, but given how I feel about audiences, I think I’m more inclined to tape something and post it to Youtube.
I light a candle for the women slain in Montreal 18 years ago today, and for all the women engineers I know.
Why you can’t REALLY trust Wikipedia
There is a Wikipedia tradition of stampeding for the bio of anybody who just croaked so you can mess with it. I checked Evel Knievel’s bio, and then I hit this clanger and just about whizzed myself laughing.
It’s NOT TRUE. It will be gone the next time you look. But it’s pretty funny, in a classically sick way.
So then I go back into the entry, and sure as sugar it’s gone, but then then THIS gem turned up. A fistful of lies in every refresh! Get ’em while they’re hot.
Polish taser victim
The more I hear and read about the international incident which ended in the death of a legal immigrant from Poland, the more disgusted and angry I am. He’s being buried today in Kamloops.
Here’s the email address of the mother’s lawyer. waltk@te-law.com
And check this out the Chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP has initiated a complaint against the RCMP, and did so on November 8th. So the watchdog is digging in as well.
I will be emailing the lawyer to ask if I can crosspost a link regarding where to send money to support her efforts to get redress from the RCMP and those incompetent louts at YVR. Man, would YOU like to not speak English and come through Vancouver Airport now???
RIP Robert Dziekanski.
Death in the family
Cousin Rawd passed away yesterday. My mother writes,
Rawd died at noon today. He had been in the hospital palliative care unit since Thursday and Graeme had hoped to get him home Friday. He was so tired, Graeme said; he had no fight left in him. Graeme said it has been grim the past few months, with Rawd fighting so hard, and day by day failing. He was conscious and alert until the last few minutes. Graeme was with him.
Graeme and Rawd were the first gay couple to marry in my family. They are the most gentle, courteous and intelligent people; Rawd was a pillar of his profession in Saskatchewan; he fought the cancer with humour, wit and an abiding courage that has served as an example to the rest of us as we have been personally tested by this same scourge. I’m crying as I write this, because I have one luminous memory of Rawd; he came to Pride Day in Vancouver two years ago, and he was SO happy to be among friends and participating. Even then he was quite frail and ill, but I’ve never seen anyone so lit from within.
I hope that genealogy programs change to accommodate gay and lesbian marriages.
And today is All Souls.
Dead junco
I found it going in to work the other day, and I love these birds, and it bothered me that the only way I could really honour how amazingly beautiful it was involved taking a picture of its corpse. Anyway, it’s thumbnailed so if you can’t bear to inspect it closely or are one of my bleaders (that would be Blog Readers) who is yucked out by birds you don’t have to look.
Marcel Marceau is dead
Another loverly day
My passport’s here already! I get to pick it up tomorrow. Katie says hers has turned up but she has to take time off work to pick it up so she’s some choked. Oh well ….NOW I CAN BOOK OUR VACATION!!!!! WEE.
Keith watched the Happy Feet segment of King of Jazz and he loved it almost as much as I did. If anybody cares….
Keith reports that he was on a Skytrain that got struck by lightning. He said the car went deader than a doorknob and when the repair guy showed up (4 minutes later) he said the car disappeared off the screen at central like it wasn’t there any more. To be anywhere in Vancouver and see lightning at all is unusual – to be in a Skytrain car that gets hit is downright freaky.
Went to Planet Bachelor tonight for a cooperative dinner and to pick up the camping gear. I will not be posting unless my cell phone works up there, which I doubt, and I don’t feel like paying $30 in internet charges just to log onto my crummy site. So I’ll be away from Friday night to Sunday night.
I am really looking forward to it, although a lot of my fave folks will be no shows due to other commitments.
Spoke to one of the Beacon young adults today about getting cooperative ministry set up at SFU. We will see what happens. I loved small group ministry when Paul and I were hosting – I have so many happy memories of that time.
Kira JUMPED INTO MY LAP when I was at Planet Bachelor tonight – that was a lot like getting struck by kitty lightning.
I must with sadness report that Speck, a companion animal in Chipper’s family, has gone where all good dogs go. He was a lively critter – he loved to run.