The brutal but overdue exits of Osama bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi, along with the less gruesome but equally permanent demise of Kim Jong-il suggest the just-completed year was a bad one for bad folks and thus, thanks to the theory of addition by subtraction, a good one for the rest of us.
But 2011 also saw the exits of many notables who spent their lives engaging in activities far more beneficial to their fellow human beings than those of Al Qaeda's murderous mastermind, Libya's longtime dictator, or North Korea's Dear Leader.
Former first lady Betty Ford personified both dignity and courage. A breast cancer survivor, she publicly confronted her alcoholism, ultimately becoming one of the most effective warriors in America's fight against substance abuse. She was also an active feminist who vocally supported the equal rights amendment and weighed in on the abortion issue as fervently pro-choice. Sadly though, more than a few brave individuals like Mrs. Ford are probably being muzzled today by those charged with avoiding risk to his/her spouse's political viability.
Numerous public servants passed away last year, including a trio of prominent politicians. When New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro was selected as Democrat Walter Mondale's running mate in 1984, she became not only the first female vice-presidential candidate of either major political party, but the first Italian-American national nominee as well. Former Illinois Senator Charles Percy was something almost as unusual these days as Italian-American female candidates for national office: the Republican who for 18 years (1967-85) represented Illinois in the U.S. Senate was a moderate who clashed with President Richard Nixon, a fellow member of the GOP, over the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s. Mark Hatfield represented a species even rarer today than a moderate Republican; he was an unapologetically liberal one. The five-term (1967-97) senator from Oregon was his state's governor when he became the only person to vote against a resolution by the National Governor's Conference expressing support for the Vietnam War. Not only that, he did so in 1966, an election year!
Other impact-makers who breathed their last in 2011 included Warren Christopher, the career diplomat who from 1993-97 served as America's secretary of state; Sargent Shriver, the first head of the Peace Corps and founder of both the Job Corps and Head Start; the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, a courageous fighter of segregation and other forms of bigotry during the early days of the civil rights movement; Steve Jobs, one of the key architects of the personal computer revolution; and exercise and fitness guru Jack LaLanne, who once swam the length of the Golden Gate Bridge underwater, shackled, handcuffed, and towing a 1000-pound boat. And that was at the tender age of 61, in 1975!
The actors who portrayed Lieutenant Columbo (Peter Falk), Gunsmoke's Marshal Dillon (James Arness), and M.A.S.H.'s Colonel Sherman Potter (Harry Morgan) all died last year. More disquieting: finding out that the three performers, who to those of us of a certain vintage were seemingly on weekly TV only last week, were 83, 88, and 96 at the time of their respective deaths. The same sort of sobering observation could have been made at the departures of former Hollywood sex symbols Elizabeth Taylor (79) and Jane Russell (89) earlier in the year. Perhaps the saddest entertainment-related passing of 2011 was that of critically acclaimed British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse; she was just 27 when she died of alcohol poisoning.
Professional curmudgeon Andy Rooney died just a month after his final commentary on 60 Minutes. Euthanasia activist Dr. Jack Kevorkian's May death was seen by some as paradoxical because it occurred due to natural causes. Former world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier was another whose passing was shrouded in irony; overshadowed in life by his loquacious adversary Muhammad Ali, Frazier's death in November was shunted to the back of the sports pages about an hour after he expired due to a headline-grabbing scandal involving alleged child molestation by a longtime member of iconic Penn State football coach Joe Paterno's staff.
Another reminder of looming mortality to some males of my generation: the deaths of, among others, Matty Alou, Chuck Tanner, Steve Boros, Bob Forsch, Woodie Fryman, Roy Hartsfield, Ryne Duren, Jose Vidal, Ron Piche, Gino Cimoli, Greg Goossen, Duke Snider, Mitchell Page, Charlie Metro, Mel Queen, Harmon Killebrew, Paul Splittorff, Jose Pagan, Jim Northrup, Dick Williams, Don Buddin, Wes Covington, Mike Flanagan, Jesse Jefferson, Merritt Ranew, Mickey Scott, and Charlie Lea during the past calendar year. All may have gone to their reward, but to those of us weaned on Topps baseball cards they remain frozen in time as 20 or 30-somethings, smiling, glowering, or staring impassively at us from the front of those small cardboard rectangles we used to pay a nickel a pack for.
Andy YoungReturn to main page
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