Death takes two

Today, I heard of the passing of two people from the world of show business: Mary Travers (of Peter, Paul & Mary) and Henry Gibson (from Laugh-In, and more recently, Boston Legal).

I am a fan of Peter, Paul & Mary, so Mary’s death was especially sad. Yet her voice will live on in my iPod and CD player.

Gibson was a bit player on Laugh-In and he played a judge on Boston Legal. I was not a big fan, but he was someone I remember clearly. Interestingly, his real name was James Bateman and he created his stage name as a pun on the name of playwright Henrik Ibsen.

It seems one of the disadvantages of living longer is that people you have seen all your life begin to pass away. As a child, you know very few people, in real life and in the public eye. But as you age, the number of people you are aware of explodes almost exponentially. The longer you live, the more people you’ve heard of. And inevitably, some of them die (before you do).

Both Mary Travers and Henry Gibson died from diseases: leukemia and cancer, respectively. I don’t know how Gibson died, but perhaps Mary Travers’ soul left on a jetplane.

At the very least, her music will forever be blowin’ in the wind.