Mourning the loss of larger-than-life icons completely normal

Ever since Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car accident in August 1997 at 36, I found it embarrassing to mourn the life of someone I didn’t know but only through news stories and the tabloids. Yet, the day of her funeral the following weekend in September, I called in sick. All the result of my being subjected to all the media and tabloid outlets reporting on her early untimely demise. I couldn’t function emotionally.

I felt the same way when attorney, journalist and magazine publisher John F. Kennedy Jr. died, along with his wife, Carolyn Bessette, and her sister Lauren Bessette in a plane crash in 1999. Both Princess Diana and JFK Jr. were lives unfinished. I still saw the 38-year-old JFK Jr. as the three-year-old son who saluted his father’s flag draped casket at President John F. Kennedy’s state funeral in November 1963. Even as I write this blog, I get teary eyed thinking about hearing the tragic losses of both JFK Jr. and Diana over twenty years ago.

Although I wasn’t a devoted fan of actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner, 54, best known as Theo Huxtable from “The Cosby Show” (1984-1992), heavy metal pioneer and Black Sabbath founder Ozzy Osbourne, 76, and professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, 71, who died last week I understood the emotional tributes devoted fans and other prominent figures in the entertainment industry expressed on social media.



I grew up with those entertainers in the early 1980s as did most everyone my age. They were a part of my generation. Their passings like so many others we’ve known half our lives leave a gaping hole. Like as though it’s ok if we leave this earth as we’re not larger-than-life figures whose works touched millions. Icons like Jamal Warner, Ozzy and Hulk Hogan, like countless notable figures whether it’s in entertainment, journalism, music, news, politics and sports are not supposed to die!

It’s bad enough when a revered icon like Diana and JFK Jr. go before their time when they had their lives still ahead of them. It’s another when a notable reviewer, news anchor and songwriter leave devoted followers with the promise they will return doing what they did best following medical treatment. Like as though they already knew the end was coming but didn’t want to leave fans without hope.

That’s how I felt when Chicago Tribune movie critic Gene Siskel announced his taking a leave of absence from “Siskel & Ebert” on Feb. 3, 1999, the film reviewing program albeit in different forms he had been cohosting with Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert since the mid-1970s. Siskel was diagnosed with a brain tumor and underwent treatment the year before. Even Ebert didn’t know how terminal his partner’s diagnosis was until Siskel died Feb. 20 that month at 53.



“I’m in a hurry to get well because I don’t want Roger to get more screen time than I,” Siskel said. I was counting on him to be back at the balcony later that year just in time to hear his thoughts on “Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace” (1999) in May. I didn’t care if he gave it thumbs up or thumbs down. I just wanted to hear his opinion.

I took ABC news anchorman Peter Jennings at his word that on his “good” days the “James Bond 007 of news” would be back on “World News Tonight” when he delivered what was his final newscast April 5, 2005, and would begin treatment for lung cancer. Jennings died on Aug. 7, 2005, ten days after his 67th birthday on July 29.



I thought Canadian songwriter, singer, poet and novelist Leonard Cohen was just suffering from writer’s block when the 82-year-old legend told the New Yorker he wouldn’t be able to finish his vault of unfinished songs and poems. He was even more uncertain he’d be able to do a follow-up to his 14th studio album, “You Want It Darker” released in October 2016, barely a month before the artist’s death of leukemia.

"I am ready to die," Cohen said. "I hope it's not too uncomfortable. That's about it for me."



It goes without saying that every time we learn the news some noteworthy personality has passed, fans flock to YouTube in hopes of listening to their music videos, watch clips from their shows and interviews or check the streaming services to see if their movies and television shows are available. I did that when Jamal Warner died at 54 from accidental drowning while on vacation with family in Costa Rica watching early clips of “The Cosby Show” on YouTube.

I watched the often-hilarious commercials Ozzy Osbourne did over the past twenty years that documented his mumbling ordering at Starbucks, telling a taxi driver where to go and complaining to a waiter about his dinner. None of them could understand him. It’s almost as if he was playing, if not parodying himself. Finally, his only way of communication in those clever ads was texting on his Samsung cellphone.



I found Osbourne’s appearance on Conan O’Brien Oct. 18, 2001, who was brought in to cheer up the Late-Night staff following the 9/11 attacks echoed what’s been missing from late night television for decades and why “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” was canceled. Late Night forgot how to be funny.



And finally Hulk Hogan. Most remember his days with the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling. I remember him more for his first big screen appearance in “Rocky III” (1982) as wrestler Thunderlips who fights Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) in a charity match.

 

All these images and memories are frozen in time.

Sadly, there is no end. We’re not reaching that age. We ARE at the age now where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away. In the coming days, weeks, months and years and the rest of our lives we’ll hear of a number of household names who’ve gone to meet their maker. Death and mourning is a part of life. We’re all mortal no matter what your status is. At least we got plenty of memories of such celebrities to fondly look back on appreciating the God given talents they gave us.

©7/25/25

Appreciation: St. Louise de Marillac School (1976-1984)

“There are places I'll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain”

-"In My Life" – The Beatles - 1965

Such were the lyrics from “The Fab Four” that came to mind upon learning that St. Louise de Marillac School (1958-2020), located in La Grange Park, Ill, that I attended from first to eighth grade (1976-1984) shut its doors for good in mid-2020.

The elementary school, like so many private grade and high schools in the Chicago area and across the country, became a victim of low enrollment and unaffordable high tuition.

In short, the writing was on the wall as to the school’s future years before the Archdiocese of Chicago’s announcement in January 2020 that the campus, along with four other Catholic schools in the city would close in June.

The one thing I can say about St. Louise is I still remember all the administrators and teachers who taught me those eight years. While I don’t remember all their first names, I know all their last names – misspellings and all. I admit I even had a crush on a few of the women teachers' years before my first crush on the one who taught my freshman typing class at Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas, Texas named Mrs. Jennifer Walls in the fall of 84’.

What made all the administrators, nuns, teachers, who also included my band instructors, is all of them exhibited one trait or more that made them stand out from each other.

First – Third Grade

Sister Petronia was my first-grade teacher. Whenever she got upset with a student her comment to that person was always, “I’m ashamed of you!”

My second-grade teacher, Mrs. Kozen, who lived a couple blocks from the school walked to work every morning. I still remember the time when she asked me to read some paragraph aloud in class and I had trouble saying the word “pupils.” I kept saying the word, “pimples.”

For much of that 1977-78 school year Mrs. Kozen didn’t understand the hype some of us students had (it was likely ONLY me) over a costly $10 million sci-fi box office bomb that made zero money called "Star Wars" (1977) that spawned countless movie franchises and forever changed how Hollywood studios marketed them.

Sister Cresentine was also my second-grade teacher who taught us reading and math. On her good days, those days when either one student or all of us didn’t get on her bad side that is, she always joked with the class. On the days where she couldn’t get a student to solve an easy math problem, Sister Cresentine would exhibit her wrath throwing the textbook at the shocked classmate asking them to leave her classroom.

Of all the nuns I had at St. Louise, my third-grade teacher, Sister Bernadette, would have been the most attractive when not in her nun’s uniform. I can’t say that for certain since I never saw her in regular clothes.

Mrs. Dort’s Shoe Collection

My fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Melodie Dort, was a short attractive redhead who, for much of the 1978-79 school year, always wore high heeled open toed sandals. On some days she even wore an ankle bracelet. Looking back on her today, I wonder on a teacher’s salary if the money she spent most on was her high heels and if her closet resembled singer Celine Dion’s shoe collection filled with shelves of pumps. 

Mrs. Dort was one among the three teachers I developed a crush on. My grade school-boy crush on her was the result of my always being seated in front of her class. I was not a good boy that year when it came to grades, so it was hard not to notice what she wore five days a week!

The other fourth-grade teacher I had was Mrs. Bibly who taught us math class. She also played the piano and there were weeks when we had singing classes. The only song I remember her playing on the piano though was "Chattanooga Choo-Choo."

Ms. Collins’ Hiccups Cure

Whenever a student developed hiccups my fifth-grade teacher, Ms. Jean Collins, had an immediate cure for them. She’d take that student in the hallway during class. Within a minute that person would be back in the classroom minus any hiccups, though there were times I would see that student with a startled look on their face coming back. 

 

Like Mrs. Dort, Ms. Collins, like so many teachers, taught standing up from her desk. Because of being on her feet for several hours, Ms. Collins, in the early afternoons, would stand behind her desk taking one of her heels off, stretching her aching foot before putting her shoe back on, then doing the same with the other. I know people reading this would equate my comments with Oscar winning screenwriter/director Quentin Tarantino’s foot fetish trademark he’s incorporated in most all his ultra-violent movies. His much-known fetish is the ONLY reason Tarantino made "Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood" in 2019 in my opinion. 

When it comes to my interests, however, the older I get the less and less I give a damn what anyone else thinks. Again, in my defense, how the hell do you expect me not to notice what Ms. Collins did standing behind her desk those nine months when I was sitting in front of the class?

My other fifth grade teacher, Ms. Janice Walsen, taught us math and history and during the summers held remedial classes for those of us with continuing issues in mathematics in the basement of the school’s rectory where the parish priests resided. Of all the teachers I had there, Ms. Walsen was the only one who remained at St. Louise long after I graduated in May 1984. I think at one point she may have been the school’s principal.

St. Louise’s Classiest Dresser

Mrs. Violet Zetlitz (1932-2013), my other sixth-grade teacher, is ironically the one I remember more who, yes, was the third teacher I had a crush on. I had her for reading and social issues courses, but it was the afternoon social issues course I liked most. It was that class she taught that got me interested in Greek mythology which began with her telling us about the fall of Troy and the Trojan War.

Mrs. Zetlitz was never at the front of the classroom when the bell rang, however, at the beginning of class. She would enter the classroom from the back, slowly walking from behind – the clacking of each heel hitting the floor every few seconds the way a dominatrix slowly struts into a dungeon in preparation for a disciplinary session with some blindfolded tied-up submissive. I can still hear those slow clacking sounds she made wearing those pumps. For much of that 1981-82 school year she was always in heels and sporting business type suits and dresses. Of all the teachers I had at St. Louise, Mrs. Zetlitz was the classiest dresser.

Like Sister Petronia, Mrs. Zetlitz also had a saying when a student stepped out of line. She’d warn the person what would happen if they got out of line again uttering the words, “That is not a threat. That is a promise!”

The Female Mr. Hand Who Kept Up With the Latest Technology

I don’t know if seventh grade (1982-83) was the most controversial since our “Class of ’84” had developed a reputation of being the ones who got into the most trouble. During the fall of that year, our seventh-grade teachers Mrs. Joyce Allen and Mr. Wojecki, and perhaps the upper powers-that-be like our principal, Mr. Bob Winski, decided the “goodie-goodie” students should be separated from the troublemakers. Mrs. Allen would teach the troublemakers in spring 83’ and Mr. Wojecki would take the “goodie-goodie” students. I was not the least bit happy I got placed with the “goodie-goodie” crowd.

I wanted nothing to do with the “goodie-goodie” crowd that year and made attempts avoiding them at all costs if not getting into trouble with the rabblerousers during recess. Some of which was mostly my doing. It's always the “Quiet Ones” you have to watch out for, you know!

The two things I recall most about Mr. Wojecki was how he couldn’t stand it when students couldn’t sit still at their desks and utter the word “Um” which wasn’t a word in the English language. The other is the brief discussion we had in class in September-October that year about the still unsolved Chicago Tylenol Murders that occurred where less than a dozen people died from cyanide-laced capsules.

Mrs. Allen, who also doubled as the gym teacher, was like the stern grandmother who didn’t tolerate any crap from our class. There were moments if a student said something about how our parents allow us to watch morally corrupt trashy programs like "Three’s Company" (1977-1984) on school nights she’d get disgusted as that is not what she would allow her kids to watch. I saw her as the female equivalent of Mr. Hand, the high school teacher Ray Walston played in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (1982), who believed every student he taught smoked dope.

From what I remember Mrs. Allen was big on the latest technology. She didn’t own just one but two VHS recorders when they first came out in the early 1980s, which to me meant you were wealthy. Thanks to that knowledge knowing she could copy VHS movies from one VCR to the other I tried getting her to do a pirated copy of "Return of the Jedi" (1983) I got from another classmate during the 1983-84 school year. Mrs. Allen, however, said the recorded copy she made was worse than the one recorded in a movie theater on a video camera and wasn't worth giving me the pirated copy. I was thankful; however, I got her to dub me a copy of "Twilight Zone: The Movie" (1983) that "legally" came out on VHS that year.

Class of '84 graduate student Cheryl Granado
posing in front of Mrs. Allen's silver DeLorean.

Mrs. Allen returned to teaching us again in eighth grade during the 1983-84 school year as did Ms. Collins. In a way, the two of them teaching our class represented a finality for both as once we graduated in May, both were leaving St. Louise. That year, Mrs. Allen drove a silver DMC DeLorean to school before that car became a plutonium fueled time machine in "Back to the Future" (1985). As someone who was never die-hard fan of the time travel movie trilogy (1985-1990), the one and only reason I’d buy LEGO’s 2022 ultimate collector movie replica building set of the car today is because of the real one Mrs. Allen drove, minus Dr. Brown's flux capacitor.

Looking back on that final year with Ms. Collins, I think she was disappointed I had gotten so rebellious those nine months compared to how I was a good student when she taught me in fifth grade. That final year I saw myself (and to this day still do) as either a rebel without a cause, a rebel without a clue or a combination of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde any day of the week. Yet in my defense that rebelliousness I displayed had a lot to do with the troublemakers I hung out with. At the same time, when my parents made the decision in January of '84 that we would move to Dallas, Texas in July that year once I graduated from St. Louise in May, as much of a hatred I had developed for “The Windy City” and how I really couldn’t stand most anyone else I came in contact that year, in my mind, I WAS ALREADY IN DALLAS!!!

All the rest…

There were close to a handful of others who either taught or scolded me throughout those eight years. 

The most I remember about my sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Carolyn Hammerschmidt (1940-2025), is she was the most religious who often did the Gospel readings at Saturday masses. I don’t think there was a time when I attended 5 p.m. mass Saturdays or served as an altar boy on those days that I didn’t see her there. If she wasn’t there, I would have wondered why.

From 1976 to 1984 I had Mrs. Arlene Fencl (1933-2021) for science class. During seventh and eighth grade I, much like our whole class, participated in the yearly science fairs. I don’t remember what project I did for seventh grade but the one I did in eighth grade was a dud which was weather related about fog. I couldn’t get “the fog” to show up in a glass bottle. I should have sought horror director John Carpenter’s advice for the experiment. Of all the teachers who yelled at us, I think it was Mrs. Fencl’s whose voice was the loudest and could be heard down the halls of St. Louise on the second floor of Junior High. Fencl later served as St. Louise’s principal for 15 years.

“An excellent teacher and principal,” said Class of '84 alum, Michele Betti. “Never an agenda - just the subject matter of the day. A consummate professional. What all educators should strive to be. She will be truly missed.”

Then there was Sister Julitta who taught us religion classes during seventh grade and took charge of the altar boys for the parish. Like, Mrs. Allen, Sister Julitta, who I didn’t know until now doubled as St. Louise’s assistant principal during the 83-84 school year was also one who didn’t tolerate any crap from students. In the early years I swore I saw her discipline one of her students in the hallway physically striking them. Whereas the altar boys (and girls) of today who are allowed to wear trash clothes under their mass outfits like jeans and gym shoes during services, we had to wear dress shoes and dress clothes when serving mass. 

I wonder what Sister Julitta would think of all the changes the Catholic church has undergone the past few decades let alone the pedophile scandals involving hundreds of priests. The sex scandals forever put a stigma on the church and had a number of once devoted Catholics (me included) vacating choosing to either join other religious denominations or stop attending masses all together as a result.

My principal, Mr. Robert Winski, doubled teaching us computers all of which came from Radio Shack. A majority of us failed those classes as they involved us actually doing programming, none of which I understood.

Mrs. Jeri Kolack, the school secretary, ran the school plays and the bowling league, and Mrs. Rosicky taught a book reading class (I confess I NEVER read any of the books assigned) after school during the 83-84 school year and sometimes logged scores for the students during the weekly bowling leagues.

Michael McLynn (1929-2021) doubled as both the head of maintenance for the school and as a Deacon who lived behind the campus off 31st and for several decades conducted masses with the parish priests.

When McLynn passed away in 2021, St. Louise alum from my 1984 graduate class, Michele Santiago (1970-2022) posted on the Graduates of St. Louise de Marillac School, La Grange Park, Il Facebook page, writing “Where do you find the words to describe the people that helped you become the person you are today? My fondest memory of Mr. McLynn was when he taught our gym class. I’m wondering where I can find a 45 RPM record of his warm-up's routine" called "Chicken Fat" (1962).

Lastly, there was Mr. Ed Ward (1941-2023) and Ms. Louise Thorson (1952-2018), the band instructors I had from fourth to eighth grade. The two were like your best friends during those years so long as there was no concert coming up, which on those days, the question was who was more stressed out. Them or the band students?

I still remember the four priests who officiated over the masses during the years I was there. Father Mark Simpson ran the altar boys for a year before leaving the parish with Sister Julitta taking over. Father Zimmerman was another who left the parish before 1984. By the time I graduated the only priest St. Louise had on a full-time basis was Edward J. Borisewicz (1925-1990).

Father John Keating (1934-1998) served at St. Louise from 1975-1983. Keating became Bishop of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia in 1983. Our class chose Keating to do our confirmation in spring 1984. Keating was among the few priests who advocated having only male altar servers doing masses.

All these individuals had something that made them stand out and yet, every one of them had one thing in common. I can’t speak for anyone else but they served as our second parents who were not afraid to discipline me or the class when the time warranted. Sure, they joked with us every now and then, but all made sure we knew who was in charge.

St. Louise class of '84 alums at a reunion.

While the parish remains open with churchgoers still attending, the question begets as to what becomes of the school other than being an empty building. I still know the locations of the administration office, teacher's lounge, the library and all the classrooms on the first and second floors, the band room and Colonnade Room where gym class, concerts, plays and talent shows were held. I wouldn’t need to fly up there to break into the school to take pictures of what the place looked like. I know it all from memory.
 

I have heard of schools closing but I never would have expected St. Louise de Marillac to join the list. I’ve always thought the school would be around long after I’ve left this mortal world.

Which brings me back to the ending lyrics from "In My Life" that summarizes my time at St. Louise over forty years ago.

“Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life, I love you more”

©7/16/25