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Wednesday, April 18, 2018

The Writer's Life 4/18 - A Great Lady & A Living Legend

RIP Barbara Bush, 92, that wonderful grandmotherly presence that graced the White House as First Lady. She was the wife of a president and the mom of another. This morning talk radio host Mark Simone pointed out a fact I do not recall having heard. Maiden name Pierce, Mrs. Bush was a descendant of Franklin Pierce, the 14th president of this great nation. She was the epitome of class. She and her husband were married 73 years.

RIP pro wrestling legend Bruno Sammartino, 82. The strongman from Pizzoferrato, Abruzzo, Italy was wildly popular during his long run in the square circle. I fondly recall announcer Ray Morgan, during interviews, asking Bruno to address the fans in Italian. To my chagrin, I have been unable to find any of those moments at youtube. I believe they would be hilarious in retrospect. I was so young then that I took them seriously. I remember him coming down the staircase of the 25th Avenue elevated train station, duffel bag in hand, on his way to a match at the Rollerama. I was in such awe I couldn't speak. After retiring from the ring, he did color analysis for the promotional events that aired on Channel 9. His lack of polish had him come off as real. Vince McMahon Jr. dubbed him "Wrestling's Living Legend." Bravo, signore. Grazie.


Hockey is unlike other big four pro sports. It is not unusual for a lower seed to advance far in the playoffs, and it's not unprecedented for an expansion team to qualify. Last night the Las Vegas Golden Knights continued their storybook inaugural season with a first round sweep of the L.A. Kings, who won the Stanley Cup in 2012 & 2014. The Knights are the third expansion team since '68-'69 to make the playoffs, and second to win their first four games. In 1970 the Pittsburgh Penguins did it. Has an expansion franchise ever qualified for the playoffs in any other sport? Remember how reluctant pro leagues were to placing a franchise in Vegas? The Knights played to 98.6% of capacity this season, averaging 17,958 fans per game.

My thanks to the kind folks who bought, donated and swapped books today, especially the young Asian woman who bought a Readers Digest compilation, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder, and works on proper diet and the environment. For a change a couple of novels in English sold: E. M. Forster's A Passage to India and Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient. As usual, two thrillers in Russian were also purchased. It was another cold afternoon, but at least the sunshine took some bite out of the wind.


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