Ripe Berry

This has been a tough year for celebrity deaths, hasn’t it? It seems like every time I turn around another celebrity has passed. Well, today I saw singer-guitarist Chuck Berry’s name in the news, and based on recent trends, and based on his age, I initially thought he was joining the 2016 list. But no. Instead, Chuck, 90, is releasing an album of new material.  By my memory, other than Tony Bennett, I’m not aware of any modern performers recording after the age of 90. Tony is old. How old, you ask? Tony is so old that he sang “Fly me to the Moon” before we landed on the moon. That’s old! It would’ve been cool for NASA to send Tony on a space flight but now he’s too old. But wait. John Glenn (see 2016 list) flew in space late in his life, so maybe Tony could still go. I think he deserves a shot. Let’s send him up while he can still enjoy it. Would we ever have gone to the moon if Tony hadn’t popularized that song? We may never know that answer. But I bet Khrushchev liked that song.  

     

Every year the magazines list their celebrity deaths for the year. The problem is that these magazines come out in mid- December. If you die in the last couple of weeks of the year, you’re outta luck.