Death Comes Knocking

For many people about my age, that is, young baby boomers and older Generation Xers, Thursday's double whammy of the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson was like a kick in the gut.

Most definitely it was a reminder that childhood is over and the downhill slide toward old age and death is nigh.

I was 13 years old when Charlie's Angels hit the airwaves on ABC. I thought it was the greatest show ever.

Every Wednesday night, when the show came on, I was plastered in front of the TV. I was not there to watch bouncy hair and jiggling boobs but to see three women - three very strong women - kick ass and take names. These ladies really could bring home the bacon and fry up in the pan, and never apologize for any of it.

Fawcett played Jill Monroe, and she was only in the first season (with guest appearances in a later season). The show lost a bit of its power when she left, not that CHeryl Ladd did a bad job. Fawcett's character just made it a little different show, is all.

My first "adult" hair cut was a Farrah cut. I never could get my hair to twirl and flip like hers but it definitely was THE cut for young ladies to have.

Michael Jackson's death is a loss, but he had grown so odd in his later years that I had lost much interest in him. Yet I do recall growing up with him. In particular I remember a TV cartoon show of the Jackson 5 that I watched. I also remember hearing him as a young man on the radio, and wondering if I could ever obtain such fame.

Obviously not.

There is no denying that Thriller made a huge impact on pop music and on the public at large. The album came out a year after I graduated from high school, and I wasn't in college - that was a floundering year for me. I'd been working and had just met my future husband about the time the album was released.

We did dance to it in a few clubs while we were dating but we quickly became an old married couple who didn't do the dance club/bar scene and to be honest the lure of Jackson's greatest release passed me by.

I never owned the record.

Even so, I do realize the genius of the musician and the impact of his music. His legacy will continue as musicians pick up his glove and move forward in a similar vein.

For me, this dual day of deceased means my own mortality is near. It also points out the truth that regardless of money, illnesses cannot be outrun and death comes to us all.

Heavy thoughts on a hot and humid day. It weights me down.