During the past week there were four deaths of notable public people that caught my attention.  They seem to come in batches, don’t they?  I’ll just point them out and if you want to find out more about their careers you can easily enter their names into your favorite search engine.

Tuesday we learned that Ricardo Montalban passed away at age 88.  He became a famous movie star in the 1940′s and 50′s playing opposite some of the hottest female leads of the time.  When his movie roles dried up because of his advancing age, he turned to television.  One of his most memorable roles was the host of “Fantasy Island.”  He was also remembered for his Chrysler commercials where he plugged the seat coverings made of “silky-smooth Corinthian leather,” of which there was no such thing.

Also on Tuesday another well-known actor died.  Patrick McGoohan, 80, is probably best-known in the U. S. for two of his TV series’, Secret Agent (with that catchy theme song performed by Johnny Rivers) and The Prisoner.  McGoohan was raised in Britain which gave him his recognizable accent, but he was actually born in Queens, NYC.

John Mortimer, a man whose name is largely unknown in the U. S., died on Friday at age 85.  He was a practicing barrister – what we would call a defense attorney – who was also a very prolific writer of fiction.  He wrote at least 30 plays that were successfully produced on the London stage, and literally scores of television scripts along with dozens of novels.  He came to the attention of many Americans as the man who penned the Rumpole of the Bailey semi-comedy series that featured a dumpy lawyer who always was defending some petty thief.  Rumpole often referred to his wife as “She who must be obeyed.”

John Mortimer (l.) and the late Leo McKern who
portrayed Rumpole of the Bailey.  (AP)

And lastly, also on Friday, Andrew Wyeth passed away at his family home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, at age 91.  Wyeth was one of the premier American artists of the 20th century.  The Wyeths are a true artistic dynasty.  Andrew’s father N. C. Wyeth was a world-renowned painter and was known to every boy as the illustrator of action books like Treasure Island and Kidnapped.

Andrew achieved prominence in his own right and is probably most recognized by his “Christina’s World.”  His son Jamie is carrying on the family tradition by achieving his own artistic notoriety.

“Christina’s World”

Well, we’d better get this equipment checked out.  Cookie’s almost got the Sunday morning puffs and jam ready and I need to get a fresh pot of coffee started.

This week’s photo-art was contributed by GeezerDotter…

Wow, the Kee-Kee birds are definitely out there this morning.  Looking at a temperature map I see many areas along the U. S. / Canada border that are in the minus-20′s and minus 30′s.  That’s almost incomprehensible to us folks down in Dixie.  When it’s that cold, water can freeze the moment it hits the air and I wonder how the firefighters manage when they are using outside streams.  Just keep plugging, I guess.

In Montreal they are experiencing water main breaks at the rate of 12 per week, thanks to the combination of the extreme cold and a water system that is still using pipes that are 120+ years old.  This photo was taken yesterday when a main burst and sent thousands of gallons (liters?) into a city street.  Those cars are not driving through the water – they are frozen in place in the water.

CBC photo

Needless to say, my own experience with working a fire during Oº F. temps is limited.  But I can never forget the novelty of coming out of the fire building and my protective clothing instantly freezing, turning me into a statue.  That’s weird.

Picking up was a challenge too.  We dragged the hose lines over to a pumper’s exhaust pipe where the couplings could be thawed quickly in order to be unscrewed.  Then we would bend the hose sections in the middle and load them onto the aerial ladder bed to be carried back to the station where they could thaw out.  Not fun.

I admire you guys who are out there this weekend doing your best.  Now let’s get ready for it and get this equipment checked out.  I’ll make sure there’s plenty of coffee.

There has been an update to the bizarre situation the other night in Hopkinton, Rhode Island, where 20 firefighters were taken to the hospital to be checked for HCN poisoning.  A few mistakes were made, but a combination of other factors compounded them into the circus that brought 40 ambulances to the scene.  Chief Billy Goldfeder of Firefighter Close Calls was able to track down the local fire chief and get the complete story.  He’s laid it out sequentially in the FCC website HERE.  Take a few minutes and check it out.  And learn from other’s experiences.

*  *  *

Yesterday’s plane crash in the Hudson River brought still another exhibit on how the internet (and the “citizen journalist”) are changing the dynamics of information dissemination in an overwhelming way.  Do you remember this photo (that I’ve cropped) of the people standing on the wing awaiting rescue?

You probably noticed that there are no rescue boats there yet.  Do you wonder where this picture came from?  And how it suddenly was showing up on websites all over the world within minutes?  This photo was posted on Twitter just moments after it was taken.

The shot was captured by a man named Janis Krums who was onboard one of the Hudson ferries that was nearby when the plane went down.  He took the picture and uploaded it directly to Twitter’s TwitPic pages with the one-line caption:  There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.  And that’s it.  This man who was just minding his business was suddenly propelled into world-wide notoriety with an excellent photograph that was reproduced on websites and television stations literally everywhere.  And I can’t overemphasize the dramatic impact of the photo itself.  Just a marvelous shot.

If somebody had been carrying a pocket video camera, we might have been treated to some live-streaming of the whole shebang right from the start when the plane was observed cruising just a few feet above the water.  What’s next?  Will we be watching some psychic’s webpage to learn where the next incident is going to take place so that we can all rush out there to watch it happen?

You can join the other 124,000+ people who have viewed Janis’ TwitPic page by clicking HERE.

And then you can get this equipment checked out.  We haven’t yet installed the program that does it via computer.  And I’ll go start the (manual) coffee machine.