Tim Conway

My father died in the same condition comedian Tom Conway is currently in. His daughter doesn’t expect him to last much longer. As a child, my parents, older brother and I laughed uproariously at his performances on The Carol Burnett Show. It was a time when comedy was still clean and free of attacks on others. The last gasp of innocence in America. Carol is still good and decent, as evidenced by her new Netflix series about children, similar to the 60’s show Kids Say the Darnedest Things.

I was once interviewed on the radio by Tom Conway, Jr. so I feel an odd connection to his father, though I never met him.

So another light is going out, and that’s what it is in a world filled with dimmer bulbs. A soldier friend of mine once shared a photo on Tim Conway’s Facebook page of himself holding an 8×10 signed by him. He actually re-shared it saying, “Here’s one of our fighting men with a signed photo of me he’s not trying to sell on eBay.” (Or something to that effect.) He went on to say some nice things about veterans in general. The man was old school in that way, too. The current crop in Hollywood, at least most of them, are either conspicuously silent or outright critical of the military. I suppose they think that’s more hip.

Here’s more about Mr. Conway’s life right now.

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2018/08/27/carol-burnett-star-tim-conway-is-battling-dementia-and-is-almost-entirely-unresponsive-report-says.html

And one of his most famous skits –

Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away

of loving hearts in the hard ground.

So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been,

time out of mind:

Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.  Crowned

With lilies and with laurel they go;

but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.

Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.

A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,

A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen,

the honest look, the laughter, the love,—

They are gone.  They are gone to feed the roses.

Elegant and curled

Is the blossom.  Fragrant is the blossom.

I know.  But I do not approve.

More precious was the light in your eyes

than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave

Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;

Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

I know.  But I do not approve.  And I am not resigned.

– Edna  St. Vincent Millay