friar82
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Post by friar82 on May 19, 2020 15:40:41 GMT -5
The father of one of my sophomore roommates referred to me as "Eddie Haskell". Was never particularly comforatbale with that label, as the guy didn't have the correct read on who I was/am. That said, it was the source of plenty of laughs - so whatever...
"Keep Calm, Wash Your Hands & Carry On"
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Post by dex on May 19, 2020 17:28:24 GMT -5
Perhaps it was when you said: "That's a lovely dress you are wearing Mrs Cleaver."
Who cares...the guy is an icon that will live on.
Me and my PC chum went on to a robust social and business life after graduation.
We were often heard to say to each other: "Watch me Haskellize this... chick or customer" as the situation required
It's so great afterwards if you pull it off ...lots of laughs. Younger generations had Rambo, we had Eddie Haskell.
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friar82
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Passages
Jun 7, 2020 17:52:09 GMT -5
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Post by friar82 on Jun 7, 2020 17:52:09 GMT -5
Olympic gold medalist and husband of an Olympic gold medalist (Nadia Comenic), Kurt Thomas has passed follow complications of a stroke he suffered last month.
"Keep Calm, Wash Your Hands & Carry On"
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Post by dex on Jun 15, 2020 7:44:07 GMT -5
Longtime AD, coach Dick Fossa dies at 61
Narragansett, North Kingstown colleagues recall a hardworking administrator and mentor to students
By Eric Rueb
Journal Sports Writer
Dick Fossa cared.
Saturday’s news of his untimely death quickly made its way through Narragansett and North Kingstown, the communities for which he worked so diligently, and made its way through the rest of the state just as fast.
According to a post from North Kingstown School Supt. Phil Auger, Fossa passed away Saturday from heart disease complications. He was 61, and leaves his wife, Terri, and three children — Cory, Cameron and Casondra. Fossa’s first wife, Kerri, passed away in 2016.
Speaking with coaches and administrators he’d worked with as athletic director at NK the last three years and as a coach and administrator at Narragansett the previous 18 years, the message was consistent. Fossa cared about the work he did and wanted to do it the right way. It wasn’t for himself — it was for everyone else.
“I can’t remember a guy who had a bigger impact in our school in such a short time,” North Kingstown
Dick Fossa, right, who died Saturday, served as head coach of the Narragansett High School football team for 15 seasons before becoming athletic director. He later moved to the same position at North Kingstown. [THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, FILE / BILL MURPHY]
baseball coach Kevin Gormley said. “He never wanted any of the credit but he deserved all of it.”
“There was no ego for
someone in his position, especially when he became AD,” said Kathryn Mahoney, who got to know Fossa both as a student at Narragansett and when she took over as coach of the Mariners’ girls soccer and basketball teams. “When you go into administration, people can change but Dick had a strong sense of himself, who he was and he never changed.”
The phrase “gentle giant” was thrown around a lot Sunday afternoon as people talked about Fossa, the former Arizona State walk-on football player who later graduated from Notre Dame. He looked big and strong enough that he still could have handled himself well on a football field, even at 61.
His first job as head football coach began at North Providence in 1996 and the Cougars improved each of his three seasons. In 1999, he took over as head coach at Narragansett and promptly won the Division IV Super Bowl, and won another in an undefeated 2003 season.
Fossa remained head coach until 2014, the same year he became athletic director following Rich Adham’s retirement. He had served as the school’s unofficial assistant athletic director while coaching football and serving as an assistant baseball coach under Keith Vellone.
“Whatever he did, whether it was coaching or as athletic director, he made programs better. He made the kids better,” Vellone said.
“I learned from his expertise and wisdom. He was a tremendous man.”
“Dick was a pleasure to work with,” Adham said. “He really liked to take the bull by the horns. I knew from the beginning he would be a tremendous athletic director at some point in his life.”
Aaron Thomas knew it, too.
Thomas, NK’s basketball coach, was part of the North Kingstown search committee and interviewed Fossa for the athletic director job in 2017.
“The most impressive thing was he came in prepared. When I say prepared, he came in knowing everything about academics and everything, not just sports,” Thomas said. “He did his research. He knew about the school rank and everything you would want to know.”
Fossa threw himself into the job, meeting with coaches and sitting in on introductory meetings with parents to ingratiate
FOSSA from page B4 to B5 himself with the community. His day wasn’t 9-5; several people interviewed said he was regularly the first to arrive and the last to leave.
While he was a former football coach, his focus wasn’t just on NK’s football team. He maintained a balance to make sure that every athlete on every team had a fair shake and it’s part of the reason why, in his three years, North Kingstown became the state’s premier public school athletic program.
Fossa was a fixture at games and commanded respect from his coaches, players and the student body. If fans crossed a line, Fossa could walk over and the problem was taken care of without him saying a word. Julie Maguire, NK’s legendary field hockey coach, remembers her first game against then bitterrival East Greenwich and noticed Fossa had zeroed in on her.
“He might have heard stories of past experiences,” Maguire fondly remembered. “Rest assured he was at the end of my bench the whole game … and it was like ‘Well, I guess I can’t misbehave tonight.’” He bonded with coaches and administrators from rival schools. South Kingstown Athletic Director Terry Lynch has known Fossa for 30 years and the rivalry between both of Fossa’s stops didn’t prevent the two from becoming friends.
“I leaned on him for things and he leaned on me for things and we talked a lot,” Lynch said. “He’s had a positive impact on my career and some of my decision-making.”
In his final act as athletic director, Fossa was there for the NK Class of 2020. He had worked out a deal with the NFHS Network so NK could stream graduation for free. Fossa knew how the system worked and was at NKHS helping set up the stage before leaving to go to his second job as Beach Manager at the Dunes Club.
Thomas said he received texts from Fossa saying he wasn’t feeling well and was going to get himself checked out. At 1:15 p.m., Thomas got one from Fossa about using a second NFHS feed so the stream wouldn’t cut off mid-graduation.
“He was more concerned with those kids going across the stage than himself being in the hospital,” Thomas said. “That’s who he was.” erueb@providencejournal.com (401) 277-7264 On Twitter: @ericrueb
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Post by dex on Jun 25, 2020 7:12:30 GMT -5
Sergei Khrushchev, son of ex-Soviet premier, dies at home in Cranston at 84
By Donita Naylor
Journal Staff Writer
CRANSTON — Sergei Khrushchev, a Soviet rocket scientist and son of Cold War-era Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, died last week at his home in the Garden City area of Cranston. He was 84.
Cranston police Maj. Todd Patalano said Tuesday that Khrushchev’s wife called to report an emergency at 9:51 a.m. on June 18.
Two police officers and an ambulance with fire personnel responded, Patalano said Wednesday. They “immediately determined that he was deceased.”
R.I. Department of Health spokesman Joseph Wendelken said an autopsy concluded the cause of death was “gunshot wound to the head.”
Patalano said the investigation is complete, the case is closed and there will be no charges filed.
He refused to elaborate further.
He had said Tuesday that Cranston’s crime scene technicians and the state medical examiner investigated before the body was removed for autopsy. “No signs of outside foul play” were found at the scene, Patalano had said..
Khrushchev and his wife, Valentina, moved to Rhode Island in 1991, shortly after the Soviet Union dissolved. He and his wife were naturalized in 1999, and he held dual citizenships in Russia and the United States.
As a rocket engineer in the Soviet Union, he worked on guidance systems for missiles, including cruise missiles launched from submarines, and on the Soviet space program, including moon vehicles.
He helped win the early stages of the space race for the Soviets.
After his father was deposed in 1964 and living in a Moscow apartment, the younger Khrushchev helped him write his memoirs, four volumes in Russian. The son translated it into English and published the three-book set with the help of Brown University’s Watson Institute and Penn State University.
The couple lived in Providence so he could take part in an exchange program at Brown University’s Center for Foreign Policy Development. They settled in Cranston. He became a senior fellow at Brown’s Watson Institute and a fellow at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He also taught at the Naval War College in Newport on Russian economic and political reforms, U.S.-Soviet relations from 1950-1964, the history of the Soviet space program and his father’s economic, political and security reforms.
The elder Khrushchev was a close adviser of Josef Stalin, and after Stalin died of a cerebral hemorrhage, took power and began de-Stalinizing
the Soviet Union. Leonid Brezhnev wrested power from him in 1964, and he lived until 1971, dying of a heart attack at age 77. He was refused the honor of a state funeral and interment with the nation’s heroes Sergei Khrushchev was a frequent speaker at the Cold War Museum near Dulles International Airport, providing insights about the Cold War from the Soviet perspective. One of the museum’s cofounders is Francis Gary Powers Jr., the son of the CIA spy-plane pilot shot down over Soviet airspace in what became known as the U-2 incident, an international crisis for the senior Khrushchev. In 2006, Sergei headlined an international conference at the museum with the grandson of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
A neighbor, Rosemarie Palumbo, who said the Khrushchevs bought her father-in-law’s house, became friends with the couple, and invited them over every year for Christmas Eve and Christmas. This Christmas was the first they missed, Palumbo said.
“They used to walk all around the neighborhood,” she said, “and he would walk with bare feet” except in winter. She hadn’t seen them walking in a while.
She said he preferred Scotch over vodka, and collected butterflies. “He liked to show off his butterfly collection.”
“They were happy together,” she said.
Funeral arrangements have not been announced. He has a son, Sergei, and a granddaughter, Nina, named after his mother. He had a son, Nikita, from a previous marriage. That Nikita, a Russian journalist, died from a stroke in 2007 at the age of 47.
The author, teacher, and rocket engineer was a key player in the Cold War and an expert in its history. He was highly regarded by former combatants on both sides. He would have turned 85 on July 2.
dnaylor@providencejournal. com (401) 277-7411 On Twitter: @donita22
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Post by dex on Jul 1, 2020 8:59:50 GMT -5
PASSAGES
Carl Reiner, creator of classic TV, dies at 98
By Mike Stewart
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Carl Reiner, the ingenious and versatile writer, actor and director who broke through as a “second banana” to Sid Caesar and rose to comedy’s front ranks as creator of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and straight man to Mel Brooks’ “2000 Year Old Man,” has died. He was 98.
Reiner’s assistant Judy Nagy said he died Monday night of natural causes at his home in Beverly Hills, California.
He was one of show business’ best liked men. The tall, bald Reiner was a welcome face on the small and silver screens: In Caesar’s 1950s troupe — as the snarling, toupee-wearing Alan Brady of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” — and in such films as “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” and “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.”
In recent years, he was part of the roguish gang in the “Ocean’s Eleven” movies starring George Clooney and appeared in documentaries including “Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age” and “If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast.”
Tributes poured in online, including from Steve Martin, who said: “Goodbye to my greatest mentor in movies and in life. Thank you, dear Carl.” Actor Josh Gad called Reiner “one of the greatest comedic minds of all time” and Sarah Silverman said “his humanity was beyond compare.” Actor Alan Alda tweeted: “His talent will live on for a long time, but the loss of his kindness and decency leaves a hole in our hearts.”
Films he directed included “Oh, God!” starring George Burns and John Denver; “All of Me,” with Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin; and the 1970 comedy “Where’s Poppa?” He was especially proud of his books, including “Enter Laughing,” an autobiographical novel later adapted into
Reiner
a film and Broadway show; and “My Anecdotal Life,” a memoir published in 2003. He recounted his childhood and creative journey in the 2013 book, “I Remember Me.”
But many remember Reiner for “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” one of the most popular television series of all time and a model of ensemble playing, physical comedy and timeless, good-natured wit. It starred Van Dyke as a television comedy writer working for a demanding, eccentric boss (Reiner) and living with his wife (Mary Tyler Moore in her first major TV role) and young son in suburban New Rochelle, New York.
“The Van Dyke show is probably the most thrilling of my accomplishments because that was very, very personal,” Reiner once said. “It was about me and my wife, living in New Rochelle and working on the Sid Caesar show.”
Reiner is the father of actor-director Rob Reiner. The younger Reiner starred as Archie Bunker’s son-in-law on “All in the Family,” and went on to direct such films as “When Harry Met Sally ...” and “The Princess Bride.” Carl Reiner would praise Rob as his favorite director, and Rob would speak with open admiration, and some trepidation, about his famous dad.
“He was the nicest man, a decent man, an intelligent man, and talented, and everybody liked him,” Rob Reiner told The Associated Press in 1992.
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Post by johnnypc on Jul 1, 2020 11:20:56 GMT -5
He was also Mel Brooks best friend. I bet they were quite a pair to hang out with. You might literally die laughing.
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mikemc
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Post by mikemc on Jul 1, 2020 18:22:21 GMT -5
The Van Dyke Show was a classic!!
....gotta love friartown...
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pcdad
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Post by pcdad on Jul 1, 2020 23:11:57 GMT -5
“It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World”
Jonathan Winters garage Mechanic maniacal scene must’ve worried some on the set that day.
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Post by dex on Jul 2, 2020 7:39:28 GMT -5
Sid Caesar's Show Of Shows was #1 for me growing up. Sid was a comic genius and Reiner played the perfect straight man.
Some of you guys not lucky enough to be vintage posters and never saw some of the sketches from the show should get to youtube asap.
There are dozens of classics but one of my favorites is when Sid was a silent movie star and talkies arrived.
As for Mel Brooks? What can one say that hasn't already been said a million times. Dozens of favorites ibcluding Young Frankenstein, The Producers and one that he starred in called High Anxiety.
A few years back before Sid died, Reiner, Brooks and the other writers from Sid's tv show gathered for a 90 minute special tribute to Sid on tv. If you can find it, you will enjoy it.
Some of Sid's other writers:
Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, Michael Stewart, Mel Tolkin, Selma Diamond, and Woody Allen Maybe Dick Cavett was also a gofer near the end
BTW besides Carl Reiner, other cast members were Imogene Coca, Howard Morris and eventually Nanette Fabray
LIVE TV every week
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Post by johnnypc on Jul 2, 2020 9:24:20 GMT -5
Boy, I must be old. I remember all of these people.
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friar82
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Post by friar82 on Jul 2, 2020 14:29:51 GMT -5
Longtime broadcaster, Hugh Downs passed away. Age 99
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pcdad
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Post by pcdad on Jul 2, 2020 14:43:42 GMT -5
Was walking with a visiting cousin up Fifth Avenue a lifetime ago in the mid-1980's and Sid Caesar was waiting outside the Plaza Hotel for perhaps a cab though he wasn't hailing one so perhaps a black car service.
This was long after he had faded from the public's collective conscience. Maybe akin to his silent movie star persona in the age of talkies.
I gave him a NY nod as I passed him without disturbing him or drawing any attention to his anonymity. Rather than getting a return nod he just glared back and I chalked it up to him having a bad day.
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Post by friar82 on Jul 6, 2020 12:03:10 GMT -5
Southern Rock legend, Charlie Daniels has passed.
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mikemc
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Post by mikemc on Jul 6, 2020 13:53:19 GMT -5
Saw CDB and the Allman Brothers at the Leroy Theater in Pawtucket in 1978.
....gotta love friartown...
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