As far as Elvis, I think I was 3 years old, it didn’t really impact me.

Rachael, actually I was thinking of John Ritter when I wrote the blog. I didn’t put him in because I didn’t think others would be as shocked as I was. My husband told me when I came downstairs in the morning and he had to repeat it twice. I couldn’t believe it was John Ritter. He seemed so full of life–how does that just end?

I am sure noone will mention this person because she isn’t an incredible actor and hasn’t really done that much for the world. But I was very sad and shocked to hear she died because she was very young and it was so sudden. Anna Nicole Smith. I hate how her life and death became a running joke. I heard a talk show on the radio even joking about the autoposy results of her body. She was a human being, a kind hearted person, and she should be missed. Plus she had just given birth to a baby..how sad for the baby to never know her mother.

When Diana died I’d gone to bed hearing that she’d been in a car accident and broke her leg. When I woke up the newspaper headlines were blaring her death. Karin, I feel she same way about Prince Charles. Her boys seem like they have their heads on straight. In my mind they are always “her boys”, not “his boys.”

When the Challenger exploded, I sat in the high school media room and watched the TV. No one went to classes for the rest of the day.

I don’t remember much about the death of Elvis or John Lennon. Neither of my parents listened to them so they were pretty unknown to me.

Natalie–good luck on the gall bladder thing. Been there, done that. I have two half inch scars on my abdomen and one hidden in my belly button. Absolutely amazing how they can do surgery these days. I worked with a girl who had hers out 15 years ago. She has an ugly 6 inch scar below her ribs. I heard on TV that they’ve done it down the esphogus and through the stomach so there are no scars at all. Frankly I’d rather have a few scars then have my stomach sliced open.

Karin, yeah, those young men seem to have some of their mom in them. Both the best parts and enough of the imperfect parts to make them very human. Charles never seemed all that human to me.

Backing up: my boyfriend broke up with me. I wanted him back desperately and mourned him for a long time. I was depressed and crazy. He moved to Colorado. I saved up money to go see him. I was going to show up on his doorstep and he’d take me back and we’d live happily ever after.

So I’m at a friend’s party and I talk to this guy I’d known through friends, more of an aquaintance, but he was a sweet guy. Kinda scruffy, but he had potential. He was going to California for a couple of weeks with a friend of his, and after some discussion, I decided to go along with them. Platonically, of course.

This marked the day I came back to full mental health. (Whether or not it’s advisable for a twenty-three-year-old girl to go on a long camping trip with two guys she didn’t know that well, that’s another story.) But as a Capricorn, it came to me that I shouldn’t throw my money away to visit a guy who probably would shut the door in my face; instead, I could go to the beach!

So we went, and we had fun, and it was platonic, and I got to know this guy and I began to realize he was a really special person. At one point we stayed in Venice Beach at a friend’s apartment. There were these life-size cloth-covered nun sculptures hanging from the ceiling and sticking out of the walls, but other than that it was pretty decent.

One morning I woke up to the TV on in the living room. (I slept on a couch.) The object of my future affection was sleeping on the carpet, and I remember feeling a definite tingle of sexual attraction.

The TV announcer said that Elvis was dead. Bad for him, but the beginning of a thirty-year relationship with my husband of 27 years.

No more lonely street for me.

You are very right about Diana. I think we all liked her more because she was flawed, and therefore real. My youngest son was really struck by her death too. He related to her sons, and the fact that she was nearly the same age as me, weirded him out.

Martin Luther King changed the world. I don’t remember his death, but I know what he stood for, and that he gave many people courage to either change their own beliefs, or stand up for other people’s rights.