The Hunker Game

Did you know there's a game called "Hunker Down"?

Don't confuse it with Husker Du, which was a children's board game, sort of like Concentration on TV, but with no Hugh Downs.

No, the Hunker Down game is played when everyone is sitting around watching The Weather Channel or some local coverage of an impending hurricane or blizzard or Ed Shearan concert - the sort of calamity that makes us take shelter. You play it this way: every time someone on the news (an anchor in the studio with his jacket off and his shirt sleeves rolled up to indicate seriousness of purpose, or a reporter out on the street wearing an LL Bean anorak and holding onto a "YIELD" sign for dear life) says, "It's time to hunker down..." you take a nip, and the last person standing wins.

I said it was a game. I didn't say it was a good game.

But, fascinated with words, I looked up "hunker" in the Merriam-Webster, and from there I found that it's "Originally Scottish. Origin unknown, but probably of Germanic origin, perhaps *hunk- or *huk-. Probable cognates include Old Norse húka, Dutch huiken, and German hocken.

Verb[edit]

hunker (third-person singular simple present hunkers, present participle hunkering, simple past and past participle hunkered)

1. (intransitive) To crouch or squat close to the ground.

Synonyms[edit]

• (crouch or squat): crouch, squat

Derived terms[edit]

• hunkers
• hunker down

Are you like me, picturing German-Scots wearing kilts and eating sauerbraten, getting ready to hunker?

I'll tell you something really cool you can get just by going to the Merriam-Webster site! You can look at a word and find when it was first used in print...or look at a year and see what words were first used in that year! 

I take no small pride in seeing that "cable television," "Cargo pants," and "water gun" first saw the light of day in the year I did the same. 

And "hunker" dates back to 1720, a dozen years before George Washington came along, but surely, sometime that year, some colonial in a tricorn hat told his neighbor that his aching knee told him that a big storm was coming in and so it was time to hunker down in the sod hut.

Isn't history fun?

The cool cool word of the day

It's fun to keep up with the English language (what's left of it), and a good place to follow the torn and tattered remnants of our mother tongue is the morning tv news shows, where grammar is hardly even considered, and mispronunciations are the rule of the day.

I'm all through hammering on their grammar and pronunciation, although I'm usually glad that Peggy is outside enjoying her porch coffee when Michael Strahan reports on the "Chipolte" restaurant chain.  

My new thing is catching the trending words on the news shows. For the longest time, everything was "horrific." Car wrecks, natural disasters, Madonna movies: all got the "horrific" label stuck on them and everyone had to use it.

Also on the abused words and terms list: "latebreaking," which covers anything that happened since breakfast, "overnight," which on Good Morning America means anything that happened since 9 AM yesterday, "walk back," which does not refer to when your car won't start and you leave it at work, but, rather, to when a politician or crook of some stripe gets caught in a big fib and they stutter and stammer three choruses of what they MEANT to say, and, of course, the Cliche Twins, "the devil is in the details," and "Pride goeth before a fall."

"The devil..." is used to describe something so byzantine as to defy description by mortals, such as the federal budget, or a Madonna movie.  "Pride goeth..." is always trotted out in winter, and used to describe a video of some stuffy business type taking a pratfall on an icy sidewalk in some icy city.

Dalkowski

But I am here to report on a new addition to the Top 10 Overused Words.  I've heard it all week to describe the response to Hurricane Harvey, kids going back to school, batting against Steve Dalkowski, and finding really nice cilantro.

The word is "daunting," and here is what your Google says about it: 

daunt·ing

ˈdôn(t)iNG,ˈdän(t)iNG
adjective
seeming difficult to deal with in anticipation; intimidating.
"a daunting task"
synonyms: intimidating, formidable, disconcerting, unnerving, unsettling, dismaying; discouraging, disheartening, dispiriting, demoralizing; forbidding, ominous, awesome, frightening, fearsome; challenging, taxing, exacting
"the daunting task of raising five boys"

So don't let Amy Robach, Jenna Bush Hager and Charlie Rose beat you at the game. Grab a word and use it, use it, use it! That's not too daunting a task, is it? 

Winging it

Many years ago, a young couple we knew were married and set up housekeeping, but as time went by, the arguments and bickering began. He claimed that she refused to mend the holes in his socks, and her grievance was that he knew she wanted a stuffed owl to decorate the living room and he stubbornly refused to purchase one.

They went back and forth with this until the day she confided to friends that "If he doesn't give a hoot, I don't give a darn."

Well, here's one owl she can't have, happily. 

Down in Salisbury, Maryland, an owl escaped from the town zoo (which I have been to and really like!) in July when a tree fell down in a storm, damaging the avian enclosure.

It's a spectacled owl, you see, so he was able to see his way out...

Anyhow, the other day, some workers at the zoo were doing their normal animal care business in the aviary when they looked up and guess HOOOO was in there?  

That's right! He came home, a little thinner and thirsty, but healthy and happy to be back, and able to participate in the zoo's fundraising plans to fix up the enclosure.

Good news for Salisbury and even better for the owl, who otherwise might have had to work at Hooters all winter.

A book fine for a fine book

I've been a patron of our excellent Baltimore County Public Library since I was but a "barefoot boy with cheek of tan," but I'll warrant that I have not paid more than a dollar in fines for lateness over the years.  It's part of my OCD to be on time for everything, and returning a book late would send me into a spin that not even a new book by Tom Wolfe could get me out of.

So I don't really know if the library takes "alternative payment methods" in settlement of fines for people returning some John Grisham pageturner three weeks late.

(Free pen name suggestion for aspiring authors: "Paige Turner.")

I have seen people write checks for their late charges, and now and then, someone will pull out their VISA and wave it around, but can you use bitcoins, Paypal, or barter with a bag of zucchini or some baby chicks? This, I don't know, but someone surely does.

I can tell you for sure that if you find yourself in Danvers, Massachusetts, and you are bringing back a Rick Warren self-help help book that you helped yourself to a month and a half ago, you cannot pay the fee with Chuck E. Cheese tokens.

That's right. The Associate Press reports that Peabody Institute Library in Danvers, Massachusetts, wrote on Facebook about how they have had a lot of people trying to settle their fines with game tokens from Chuck E. Cheese and Bonkers— another amusement house in Peabody.

Bookkeeper Sue Kontos told The Salem News that she was balancing the till one day recently and found that someone had slipped three Chuck E. Cheeses dealies in there as if they were real currency.

The library would have you to know that "tokens are not legal tender and cannot be accepted."

They also remind slow readers that they can't accept Canadian money either.

This is in Danvers, remember, which was once known as Salem, where wiccans were once put on trial, so I would not try any clever tricks with these people.  They might invite you in for a sandwitch.

A look back and forward

It's late last night as I write this. (Notice how a blog can shift time as it sees fit?)

So much is on everyone's mind these days. The 16th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is today, and curiously, September 11, 2001 was a beautiful sunny day, just like the weather has been here in the mid-Atlantic for the past few days.

But sadly, the weather in other parts of America has been far short of stellar. Western wildfires, the ebbing waters of Houston after Hurricane Harvey, and the current unspeakable, unthinkable damage in Florida from Hurricane Irma.

The 2001 calamity was stunning for the loss of lives, and these current cataclysms will take some lives with them, and certainly billions of dollars in property. And worse, the loss for many people of all they owned, from family photos to houses to hopes and dreams and confidence in the future.

We as a nation have a great ability to get back to our feet, dust ourselves off and walk on. I have to feel that help will arrive in Texas and Florida and the other states awash in loss and misery down South, and things will get back close to something like normal...someday.  Not soon.

But it was predictable that people in Florida would take advantage of the situation down there, breaking into stores and ripping them off. My feelings about law and order are quite plain. I don't like it when laws are broken, at all.

But when TV news crews are out getting video of the looting, and people race to put those images on Facebook as evidence of the evil in society, I can only think of one thing, and that is how interesting it would be if there could be video of investment bankers looting pension funds with total impunity.

You won't see that on the local news, because that sort of looting takes place in well-appointed boardrooms in office buildings we never get to see.

We can be better. All of us. Not just the petty thieves, but all. Just think of the national amity that 9/11/01 brought on. We were kind.

Sunday Rerun: On the other hand

Idly leafing through a "Real Simple" magazine while idly leafing through a sick day yesterday (I think the meds I took were harder on me than the cough/fever/cold) I came across an article in which a woman listed ten things that her father had told her - and was RIGHT about!

You remember what Mark Twain said, about how when he was 16 his father was the stupidest man alive, and how surprised Twain was, at 21, to see how much the old man had learned in five short years!

Of course, that can go both ways.  If your father happens to be a foolish bloviating ignorant poophead, then don't hold your breath waiting for wisdom to be conferred upon him anytime in this century.

But most Dads are not mel-contents, so you can learn from them. The woman who wrote the article mentioned a couple of old maxims: keep plenty of baggies around (big yeah from me!), you can't go wrong with a Clint Eastwood movie (with only the sole exception of Bridges of Madison County, but no one is perfect) and always have a handkerchief (I wouldn't be without my bandana.  Ask to see it, any time.)

One interesting note that the writer learned from her pop, and I really liked, was this one:

1. Hold hands while you hash it out. My folks have been married for 47 years. One of my father’s rules for a happy marriage is that if a nasty argument erupts, hold hands as you fight. You’ll feel goofy doing this, but here’s the thing: It works. Recently my husband, Tom, forgot to pay a few bills that were buried under a pile of clutter. I was incandescent with rage. So we interlaced our  fingers while we talked it out, and I felt my blood pressure plummet and my endorphins flow in spite of myself. It’s impossible to scream at someone who is giving your hand a gentle squeeze. It just is.

Now, now, now.  I really like this one.  It's from the "a soft voice turneth away wrath" school of behavior, and many marriages and relationships seem to run off the fumes, if not the grapes, of wrath. So, since you can't fight if you can't find someone to fight with, try this out and let me know how it works, will ya?  Because Peggy and I, well, we just don't have those fights.  Peggy is the greatest wife in the world.  She deals with my mother with the economic skills of Ben Bernanke, the healing skills of Ben Carson, the dessert skills of Ben and Jerry, and the diplomatic wisdom of Ben Franklin. After 37 years, and with neither of us being hotheaded or temperamental, we know each other so well, that there is little chance of becoming "incandescent with rage."  I mean, really. You're gonna go ten rounds just because he forgot to pay some bills?  Did the world come to an end?  I hear you can forgo house payments altogether for like two years before the sheriff even has chance to mail foreclosure papers to your front door, so, come on with the bills already.  Oh sure, there are times I have to sit down and give Peggy a good listening-to over something I did or didn't do, and yes, I was wrong to a buy magazine subscription when a pretty girl came door-to door putting herself through college, and I was dead-to-rights wrong when I was certain that "Light Brown" paint from K-Mart was a perfect substitute for "Raleigh Tavern Tan from the Olde Williamsburgh Collection" paint for the backsplash at the old house, and yes, I thought it was pretty funny to move all the pots and pans and plates and cups in that same kitchen, but if only someone had been holding my left hand, I would only have been able to prank half as much that night.  It was to be the next morning that I came to find out that rearranging the kitchen was not nearly as funny as I thought it would be.  

I know that now.  Give me a hand.

Purple passion

Be honest with you, my dear Peggy was not so much into football until the Baltimore Ravens came to town. After the team's nickname and colors and uniforms were designed, the team held a grand unveiling downtown, and when Peggy saw the late wide receiver Michael Jackson strut out wearing #81 she exclaimed, "Oh look! They wear purple outfits!" and she was a fan for life.

"Uniforms." Not outfits.

But the color of products makes a difference, and if a "brand" can be identified by a particular hue, so much the better. You think of black and orange, Baltimore Orioles come to town - the birds and the Birds.  John Deere tractors are John Deere green. You want to send a package, you wonder what Brown can do for you today. And a sharp-eyed gift-getter knows the Tiffany shade of turquoisiness at 50 yards.


The late entertainer Prince was, for a while, known by a logo and not his name. He gave that up after no one on earth could figure out what the devil he was talking about, but notice the color he used - Purple - was the color that came to be identified with him. The song and the movie Purple Rain came out decades ago, but even now, a year and a half after he died, Prince is still called "The Purple One" by his legions of fans. 

And now the Pantone Color Institute, the people whose business it is to register all the colors we use and to not the trends of color popularity, has bestowed upon Mr Prince Rogers Nelson his own color.  And - spoiler alert - it's purple!

Laurie Pressman, vice president of Pantone, said it was an honor to help develop Prince's hue.
"A musical icon known for his artistic brilliance, Love Symbol #2 is emblematic of Prince's distinctive style," she said. "Long associated with the purple family, Love Symbol #2 enables Prince's unique purple shade to be consistently replicated and maintain the same iconic status as the man himself."

Yes, people in the business world really do talk like that.

But here is the color that will be forever linked to the man who sang "Ronnie Talk to Russia"(my personal favorite, and one that could be easily revived as "Donnie Talk To Kim" today)...

How many shades of purple are there, anyhow?

I have to hope there is a certain bit of orange in that mix, because, guess what? Tyka Nelson, Prince's sister who seems to be a spokesperson for his estate, says his favorite color was not purple after all, but orange, which nothing rhymes with (purple, of course, rhymes with everyone's favorite pancake topping, maple surple.)

Prince's guitar 

"The standout piece for me is his orange Cloud guitar," Tyka said. "It is strange because people always associate the color purple with Prince, but his favorite color was actually orange."

My favorite colors, if you wonder, are brown and orange - the colors of the Cleveland Browns, but they became the Ravens, so there you go...

The Saturday Picture Show, September 9, 2017

If you have the vivid imagination of a writer or filmmaker, this picture of a Louisiana swamp already has you thinking of plots and characters and the like, and all I can think of is, I am so glad I don't live anywhere near a swamp.

From Hurricane Andrew, 1992: the flamingoes at the Miami Zoo rode out the storm in a zoo restroom. Let's hope this weekend turns out to be the biggest change of weather plans in weather history down there and the whole Irma thing just goes away.

You COULD buy a wooden spoon at the Dollar Tree or you could carve your own...

Speaking of storms past and present, here's a plywood shutter that is currently riding out its third hurricane in Florida. 

I recently switched from a digital watch to an analog, and do you know what? It takes half a second to figure out what time the hands are telling me it is...

He would be 81 today but his music is still great. That's Buddy Holly on the left, Charles Hardin Holley by birth name, with his high school girlfriend Echo McGuire (Griffith), who is still with us. I am crazy about the name "Echo" for a girl, in case you're looking for ideas...

Here's a great idea that will save all back scratchees the pain of saying, "A little to the left...down...now to the right..." Just give the coordinates of where it itches! I'm an H3/H4 guy.

You know what else I am crazy about? Honesty in signs. No one wants to work tonight? Fine, close up early. Reminds me of the person who once called 911 at 11:45 one night and said, "Oh good! You're still open..."

I see icy people

There was a radio show that became a movie and also a television show back in the black and white TV days. It was called "My Friend Irma," and as I write this a few nights ago, we are hoping that Tropical Storm Irma will be our friend and take a hard right turn out to sea.

Weather prognostication is a chancy business, and quite honestly, not even the best of science can be sure of a forecast that's more than 2 days out.  And even then...

Cantore

But still, we cling to our old ways and rush out to believe whatever forecast that seems to suit our needs. Wizened woodsy types will tell you that when the wooly caterpillar seems to be wearing two coats by Veterans' Day, watch for a cold winter.  And when the squirrels build their nests high in the trees, that's another sign.  And when Jim Cantore parks his car down at the end of your street and gets out with all sorts of suitcases and equipment boxes, that's the most sure sign of all.

Many people cling to the hoary* old Farmers' Almanac, who has already published their weather forecast for this coming winter, which we shall call 2018. And based on their "formula," Maryland is in for "above-normal" precipitation this winter, and that means a "cold-and-snowy" winter.

And then, to use the currently popular expression that we hear 27 times a day, the Farmer's Almanac "doubles down" on its prediction. Not just "snowy" weather for us is in the offing, but "a good amount" of what many here call "White Hell."

Speaking of colors, you might want to get your red pencil out if you got your 2018 calendar from the Purple Heart and mark down these dates:  January 20-23, February 4-7 & 16-19, and March 1-3 & 20-23. Those are days in which the eastern seaboard can expect heavy snow. 

The National Weather Service has not had the time to issue their long-range forecast (being as busy as they are with hurricanes), and you would probably have no success going office to office within the weather office asking for a copy of the Farmer's Almanac.  These are people of science, people who have no truck with publications that also offer hemorrhoid remedies, hints for growing massive sweet potatoes, and 9 New Facts about Franklin Pierce.

I like the almanacs, and read four or five of them every year, but I like them for the moon phase timetables and, yes, the articles, not for the forecast at all. I can get that from any local station, or the Weather Channel.  But if you wish, here is a link to the Farmer's Almanac forecast.  I hope they are right!

Hoarfrost

* I used "hoary" here in its secondary sense (old and trite.) It came to me to tie it into words about weather because of the word "hoarfrost," meaning grayish white cobwebby frost.

That's something I learned in the Farmer's Almanac, circa 1963. 

Psychic Sidekicks

In my time in supermarket waiting lines over the years, I have been known to pick up those trashloid "news"papers to read interesting articles while I wait to pay for the Meow Mix.

Having read about a 1957 Chevrolet being found on the surface of the moon or adoption agencies selling shaved apes as babies or aliens landing in Delaware to assume roles as state senators, I can go on with life. But as I do, I always wonder about the headlines on those fishwraps that promise amazing predictions from "top psychics." As in, how does one become a "top psychic"? Is there some sort of wacko convention at which the selections are made from a list of people brave enough to foresee that some movie actor will get a divorce? Or that there will be some sort of weather emergency somewhere in America in the next six months?

Marco

Some people take their seers seriously. Up in New Jersey, a woman named Sally "Kim" Wando and her son Frank Marco, 24, stand accused of bilking some old dude from Waretown, NJ, out of thousands of his dollars. He was paying them to "rid him of evil spirits." 

Galloway Township police say the charges against Wando and Marco are second-degree theft by deception and conspiracy to commit theft.

The victim, whose name is not being released to protect what's left of his dignity, went to the cops on August 15 to report that his psychic was "cheating" him.

Wando

Apparently, he had gone to Ms Wando for a glimpse into his future, and she foresaw a future that included him shelling out $5,000 for an initial consultation - but that was just the entry fee.

She saw eight evil spirits in his life, you understand, and getting rid of them would require a 14-step program @ $10,500 per step - treatments to "cleanse his soul and allow him to live in peace," said the police in charging documents. 

The total was to be $147,700, a bargain any way you look at it, what with eight evil spirits running around. And when they were arrested, Wando and Marco said that money was for a car from Marco's auto dealership, not for some flakey psychic stuff, you see. But the police found that claim to be unsubstantial, since there was no car.

The mother and son team have been released pending court dates, which, I predict, will come soon. 

Actually, they might have gotten away with it had they told the man that TWO evil spirits were buzzing around him.

Rumor Has It

It comes as a surprise to people under 80 that I have a famous name.  Surprise, surprise!

Mark Clark was a general in World War II who led fighting in North Africa and Italy and retired to run The Citadel, a military college in Charleston, S.C. There is a stretch of highway down that way named for Mark Clark, and I can't remember a summer since digital photography came into vogue that some friend or other hasn't sent me a picture of the highway sign named for "me." In fact, I just got this GPS screen shot the other day to add to the collection, and I always appreciate being remembered like this!

The only regret I have over my connection to the general is that he did not have a colorful nickname that I could have taken for my own...you know, something really cool like Gen'l Mark "Old Blood And Guts" Clark, or Mark "Baby Face Pretty Boy" Clark. That last one might not have suited a general too well, but as it turns out, the nickname my grandma gave me, "Marky Mark," was stolen by some actor and hamburger vendor from Boston, leaving me without a nickname.

Here's the reason I bring all this up. It happens every time I deal with someone old enough to remember World War II - I give them my name, and their face lights up with memories of the day when General Clark was chasing the Nazi Rommel all over the deserts of Egypt. And even if asked if I were named for the great soldier, I have to say no (it was for the Biblical Mark).

The latest was the other day when I went to pick something up at a store, and once he had my name, the clerk, one of those fellas who is clearly retired from somewhere else but is working at a store just to be around people, so ebullient is he, told me about hearing war stories on the radio as a kid.

And then he told The Bob Keeshan Story, and I decided to let it float on by.

You've probably heard all about this one. I sure have, at least a dozen times, the legend of how Lee Marvin was on the Tonight Show and told Johnny Carson that yeah, he was a Marine and got shot in the war, but that "the toughest guy he ever saw was Sgt Bob Keeshan, who saved countless lives with his heroics at Iwo Jima."


And then the teller always asks if I know who Bob Keeshan was, and yes, I know, he was Captain Kangaroo on the television years ago, and what I used to tell people, but no longer bother to, is that Keeshan was a Marine, but he joined up after the Battle of Iwo Jima and never saw any combat.

The other version of the story is that Fred Rogers, TV's Beloved Mister, was such a tough sailor in his days, a Seal in Viet Nam with countless kills to his credit, and so many scars and tattoos on his arms that he had to wear that long-sleeved sweater at all times to hide his arms from the kids.

Fact is, Fred Rogers, who was in his mid-40s at the height of the Viet Nam War, never served in any branch of the military. It's all right here, if you want to read all about it.

Just how these stories get started is something to ponder, but refuting them no longer interests me. How does it alter my life any if this nice old man at the drugstore has such kind thoughts about Captain Kangaroo, and how would it improve either of our lives to set the record straight?

Holy Cow. I might be growing up. 

Happy Labor Day 2017

Sunday Rerun: Old King Coal

To all my vegetarian friends, may I steer you to another blog just for today? Nothing you will read beyond this sentence will be of interest; I'll stake my reputation as an avowed carnivore on it.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, hero of the D-Day Invasion and two-term US president during my childhood, contributed a lot to our modern society. A great military man who later warned of the consequences of exaggerated balance of power in the nation as he left office, he also contributed a style of cooking steak that only now, decades later, is being recognized for its genius and simplicity. And tastiness!

He cooked steaks directly on hot coals!

When you cook steaks on a grate above the heat source, the space between the hot coals and the grate itself serves an an oxygen source, and there's where you get your flare-ups. This way, no flareups. And no greasy grate to scrub later!

Of course, to cook steaks on a charcoal grill this weekend, first, go find a job that pays you on a par with neurosurgeons and big-league starting pitchers, and you'll be able to afford a couple of nice porterhouses or New York strips.

Then load the old kettle grill with charcoal - the kind made of wood chunks, not briquettes. You can usually find big bags of this charcoal at hardware stores and liquor stores. Let those chunks burn for a good while, getting past red hot (so that's where the expression comes from!) to where they are white hot, and then, just before dropping steaks on them, blow across the top to remove any dust.

Eisenhower, or "Ike," as he liked to be called, also liked three-inch beef strip steaks, covered all over with salt and pepper, then set down directly on white-hot coals. This gives a rare, charry-crusted steak that is said to be out of this world.

All the online sources I checked say this works well for any meat that is cut thick, so you can even try tuna steaks or pork chops. Let me know how it goes for you!

The Saturday Picture Show, September 2, 2017

Do you suppose the bricklayer who made this wall had an idea what a nice playground he/she was making for cats and birds?

A blackberry is ripe for picking when it's pointed down to earth, even if it's still a little red. 

Old wood and rusty hinges. Sounds like a great title for a country music show!

Maybe we should start to think of Hungary as a good source for amusing and whimsical structures, such as this high-tension electric power line transmission tower.  Their power company chose to build it in the shape of a clown, to entertain passersby. Nice!

It's New Year's Day, Christmas and every other happy day all wrapped up in one. College football season starts when Alabama says it does and this year's Crimson Tide will be out to erase the memory of whatever caused them to lose the 2016 championship game. Tonight, it's 'Bama and Fla State, at 8 on ABC.

So you're working at a distillery that puts out, let's say, a second-rate whisky, and the boss comes to you and says he needs a name for his brand of hooch and a symbol to go with it.  Someone came up with this. Really.

Lend me your ears.  No! You can keep them! This guy had a bumper crop so he backed his bumper up and handed out the cobs.

Free wallpaper for you today is a rainbow over Machu Picchu.

"Pair up in threes" - Yogi Berra

The talented Mr Thomas

I was waiting for the 6th shoe to drop after Dick Gregory and Jerry Lewis passed on, and sad to say, I didn't have to wait for long. Jay Thomas, the storyteller, comic actor and radio host who made every holiday merry and bright through the traditional throwing a football at a meatball atop a Christmas tree after telling the Lone Ranger story, passed away last Thursday. If you haven't seen these holiday hi-jinx, here you go, and we'll be here when you get back.

It always seems to me that celebrities die in threes. Remember last holiday season, when George Michael, Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds all went 1-2-3? In '09, it was Ed McMahon, and then, two days later, Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett on the same day. And the article I was reading about this very thing mentioned that in 2006, James Brown, Gerald R. Ford, and Saddam Hussein all passed more or less together.  

I have to lodge a protest, though, at calling Saddam a "celebrity," a category that begins with "Comic Sandy Baron, who played Jack Klompus on 'Seinfeld,'" and closes with that orange guy who used to be on the Celebrity Accomplice or whatever it was called.

But a look back at the newspapers shows that Tommy Allsup of Buddy Holly and the Crickets, and Las Vegas entertainer Buddy Greco both passed in the first days of 2017.

So maybe it isn't really that celebrities die in threes, but that we stop counting at three, mourn that trio, and then go back to whatever we do when not watching Access Hollywood.

"Patterns in death, patterns in misfortune – those are things that help us try to understand the universe or reality in a way that makes sense of it," says John Hoopes, a professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas. "In general, we’re very uncomfortable dealing with randomness."  Which is why we try to make order of chaos, and that is called apophenia, Hoopes says.

"Apophenia is identifying significant relationships when, in fact, they probably don’t exist independent of the observer," he says, for those of us who thought that Apophenia was the Greek Goddess of random events.