[MaxBigfoot]

Yeah, it's been a little sad here watching the last couple of stores selling off their stock.  Here in Calgary, the downtown Bay is actually a historical edifice, and that's the case in a few other Canadian cities as well.  It's gonna be interesting to see what happens to those, since they're protected from destruction or major change.

[solvegas]

Yeah, it's been a little sad here watching the last couple of stores selling off their stock.  Here in Calgary, the downtown Bay is actually a historical edifice, and that's the case in a few other Canadian cities as well.  It's gonna be interesting to see what happens to those, since they're protected from destruction or major change.

For years now, several retailers which were iconic when I was young have died also, like Montgomery Ward and Woolworth's/Woolco.

[CarlTL]

Yeah, it's been a little sad here watching the last couple of stores selling off their stock.  Here in Calgary, the downtown Bay is actually a historical edifice, and that's the case in a few other Canadian cities as well.  It's gonna be interesting to see what happens to those, since they're protected from destruction or major change.

I did see that Canadian Tire bought the rights to the name/brand so who knows what they'll do with it, but if they buy up some of those iconic locations and put the name back on them...

[MaxBigfoot]

The death of almost every major department store here other than Walmart has always sucked to me.  Zellers, Woolworths, Macleods, etc, etc.  I remember fondly eating for cheap in Woolworth's cafeterias/restaurants, back in the day.  The Bay downtown was a place I hung around in for hours, eating lunch in the cafeteria in the top floor.
Those were the good old days.   

[solvegas]

Another retailer that is not completely officially dead, but it is close to it, which I used to go quite often years ago, and I still have lots of its iconic Craftsman tools, is Sears. There is only one in the Las Vegas area, and it's located in the opposite side of the metropolitan area and it's not as big as it was before.

[MaxBigfoot]

Sears is dead here.  Sears Canada went down completely in 2018.   

[Scarface]

Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys’ visionary and fragile leader whose genius for melody, arrangements and wide-eyed self-expression inspired “Good Vibrations,” “California Girls” and other summertime anthems and made him one of the world’s most influential recording artists, has died at 82.

[MaxBigfoot]

Sly Stone, of Sly And The Family Stone, passed away on Monday, June 9.  A bad week for music.   

[rtpoe]

CONRAD "GUS" SHINN (1922-2025)

Conrad Selwyn Shinn was born in Leaksville, North Carolina — a mill town that is now part of the city of Eden. As a boy, he idolized Charles Lindbergh and Wiley Post, pilot heroes of the golden age of aviation. His high school yearbook, which he edited, seemed almost prophetic in its title: The Pilot. He graduated at age 16, first in his class, and studied aeronautical engineering at North Carolina State College, now a university. He enrolled in a civilian pilot training program, left school to join the Navy in 1942 and received his commission the next year.

Shinn started out as a multiengine pilot in the South Pacific, transporting medical supplies and wounded men. He later flew military brass and other VIPs, ferrying flag officers, Cabinet secretaries and friends of President Harry S. Truman, before volunteering for Operation Highjump, a Navy program that brought him to Antarctica for the first time in 1947.

The Navy had been poking around in Antarctica for years, supporting scientific research and acquiring a foothold there in case it became strategically important. Shinn's role in the operation was basically that of an aerial photographer; he spent a month at the Navy's makeshift base on the Ross Ice Shelf.

Now at the rank of Lt. Commander, he returned to the Antarctic in as part of Operation Deep Freeze, a Navy mission that was launched in support of the International Geophysical Year, a collaborative effort promoting scientific research at the poles and elsewhere around the world.

One of his missions was to fly to the South Pole - to see if it was indeed possible to land and takeoff there. Piloting a propeller-driven R4D-5L named "Que Sera Sera", he took seven passengers and crew. Upon landing (on October 31, 1956), after bouncing on the hard snow with skis affixed to its landing gear, the crew kept the engines running to prevent a freeze-up, Rear Adm. George J. Dufek stepped outside into the 60 below environment and planted an American flag into the ice. (Technically, they had landed about four miles from the geographical South Pole. Observers deemed it close enough.) The group set up a metal radar reflector, intended to help future pilots make their way to the site, and spent about 45 minutes outside before readying for takeoff.

This was the third time people had reached the South Pole.....

Unfortunately, because they'd left the plane's engines running to prevent freezing, the snow under its skis had melted and refrozen. They were stuck. “We just sat on the ice like an old mud hen,” he told the Associated Press in 1999. Fortunately, the plane was equipped with a "JATO" system: rockets that would assist in difficult takeoffs. Shinn managed to free the plane and just barely take off. The next month, the Navy began building a permanent base at the South Pole.

As a result of the mission, Cmdr. Shinn was awarded the Legion of Merit. Antarctica’s third-highest peak, Mount Shinn, was named in his honor.

“I had been lucky,” he said in the oral history, looking back on his flying days in the Antarctic. “Lucky — that’s what I would call it.”

Cmdr. Shinn retired from the Navy in 1963 and settled in Pensacola, where he had been stationed. For years, he made regular visits to the National Naval Aviation Museum, where he was able to visit his restored former plane, the Que Sera Sera, and tell visitors about his flying days.

Shinn and the Que Sera Sera in 2016:

[rtpoe]

FREDERICK FORSYTH (1938-2025)

Born in Kent, England, Forsyth joined the RAF at the age of 18 before becoming a war correspondent for the BBC and Reuters. He revealed in 2015 he also worked for British intelligence agency MI6 for more than 20 years.

1970 found him "in debt, no flat, no car, no nothing and I just thought, 'How do I get myself out of this hole?' And I came up with probably the zaniest solution - write a novel," he said. Drawing on his experience  around the world, he penned a thriller set in 1963, about an Englishman hired to assassinate the French president at the time, Charles de Gaulle. Publishers weren't interested - de Gaulle was still alive, so the ending was a foregone conclusion. Forsyth changed his tactics, and presented the manuscript to publishers with a cover note stating that the novel wasn't about the success or failure of the mission, but rather in the details of the manhunt. London-based Hutchinson & Co. took a chance on publishing it; however, they only agreed to a relatively small initial printing of just 8,000 copies.

The Day of the Jackal was an instant sensation, earning international acclaim and being made into a movie in 1973. He'd write over 25 books, including The Odessa File and The Fourth Protocol, and sold 75 million books around the world.

His works required meticulous research - Jackal saw him visiting a professional forger to find out how to obtain a false British passport, and a gunsmith told him how to devise a rifle so slim it could be concealed in a crutch. He includes specific details about the particular functions of security officials and the paperwork needed to get through a police cordon. Writer Lee ("Jack Reacher") Ch|ld said Forsyth changed the entire genre. "We all had to perform to that same level. There was a movement throughout thriller writing to concentrate on the detail, the research. An obvious example would be Tom Clancy. Could Tom Clancy have existed without Frederick Forsyth? Highly unlikely."

Forsyth and Michael Caine, probably in 1984, talking about the movie version of The Fourth Protocol:

[rtpoe]

BOBBY SHERMAN (1943-2025)

The son of a milkman, he showed a talent for music at an early age. He sang and learned to play a number of instruments, seeing performing as a way to overcome his shyness. Like a lot of people, he joined a band in high school and hoped to break in to the entertainment industry. Studying psychology at a community college, he got his break when a date invited him to a cast party for the soon-to-be released 1965 biblical epic The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Held at Sal Mineo's house, the party had a lot of big Hollywood names in attendance - along with a band that included a couple of members of Sherman's high school band. They needed a singer, and invited Sherman to join them on a couple of numbers. With his rendition of “What’d I Say” by Ray Charles, he caught the attention of movie stars Natalie Wood and Jane Fonda. Along with Mineo, they approached him at the end of the song. One of them said, "You’re very good. Who’s handling you?" Since he didn't yet have a career, Sherman had no agent or manager or anyone "handling" him.

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Sherman received a phone call from an agent. He became a house singer on the variety show Shindig! and began making appearances on TV programs such as The Monkees. Stardom came when he landed a co-starring role on Here Come The Brides (a Western set in the logging boomtown of Seattle, where logging executives decide to recruit marriageable women to stave off loneliness among the lumberjacks)  in 1968.

The next year he launched an even more successful singing career, with hits including "Easy Come, Easy Go" and "Julie, Do Ya Love Me". For a while, the teen heartthrob was everywhere - posters, T-shirts, cereal boxes, lunch boxes.... After one performance, he had to sneak away in a hearse while fans mobbed a decoy limo.... Musical success eventually stopped, but he kept making TV appearances through the 1980s.

After his star faded, he chose an interesting second career. After taking a Red Cross class to learn how to care for his two sons if they were injured, he received his certification as an EMT. He joined the Los Angeles Police Department and instructed police academy trainees in first aid and CPR, becoming in the course of his work a sworn police officer and the department’s chief medical training officer. He also founded a volunteer EMT foundation, and, with his second wife, the Brigitte and Bobby Sherman Children’s Foundation, providing educational and nutritional services in Ghana.

Even in his new career, he still had his fans. One day, “we were working on a hemorrhaging woman who had passed out,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Her husband kept staring at me. Finally he said, ‘Look, honey, it’s Bobby Sherman!’” The woman quickly came to and exclaimed, “Oh great, I must look a mess!” “I told her not to worry, she looked fine,” Mr. Sherman recounted. He then signed an autograph before the ambulance whisked her away.

"Little Woman" (1969)


Interviewed by Dick Clark (1973?)


And yes, cereal boxes - complete with cheap but playable record on the back.

[MaxBigfoot]

Extremely cool.  I'm MUCH more impressed with his life after stardom than before.

[rtpoe]

BORIS CLAUDIO "LALO" SCHIFRIN (1932-2025)

Here's some of his other work:

Cool Hand Luke (1967)


Dirty Harry (1971)


Rush Hour (1998)


Mannix (1967-1975)


Medical Center (1969-1976)


Bullitt (1968)

When he was asked by the producer about his music for this scene, he said, “Silence is also music. The lack of music is going to make a great effect.”

And the work he's best known for?
Morse Code for "M I" is dash, dash - dot, dot. Long, long, short, short. Keep that in mind the next time you think of the theme.......
 

[Scarface]

Michael Madsen, the actor known for his roles in Quentin Tarantino films including “Kill Bill: Vols. 1 & 2” and “Reservoir Dogs,” has died, Variety has confirmed. He was 67.

Madsen was found unresponsive in his Malibu home Thursday morning, according to his rep, who said the cause appeared to be a cardiac arrest.

[solvegas]

Michael Madsen, the actor known for his roles in Quentin Tarantino films including “Kill Bill: Vols. 1 & 2” and “Reservoir Dogs,” has died, Variety has confirmed. He was 67.

Madsen was found unresponsive in his Malibu home Thursday morning, according to his rep, who said the cause appeared to be a cardiac arrest.

I wasn't aware that he was younger than me.