Monday’s storms were fierce, all right.

RIP, Bob Newhart. I came along too late to listen to the button-down mind record when new – I learned about it later – so for me Bob played the fellow who walked through Chicago and was a psychologist-chair straight man to a revolving group of eccentrics.

He’s one of the reasons the ’70s was a golden age for sitcoms. As a regular viewer, I must have seen almost all of The Bob Newhart Show. Because I didn’t pay much attention to TV after that decade, I haven’t seen many episodes of Newhart, but maybe now is the time to start.

Speaking of the ’70s, I found this posted online recently.

RIP to all these classmates of mine. The list was compiled by classmates who organize reunions and the like.

A few on the list were good friends of mine, including Kevin Norton and David Bommer. Most of the others I knew, or knew of. For a few I wonder, who was that again? even though AHHS wasn’t that large a high school. About 320 or 330 in the Class of ’79.

I know that because of the astonishing fact – in retrospect, at least to current or recent high schoolers – that periodically the administration would issue every student a GPA card that would not only tell you your exact GPA, but also where you ranked out of those 320 or 330. (I was always near the bottom of the top 10%.)

Twenty-seven names, though probably a few who have passed weren’t listed, so let’s say about 10% of the Class of ’79 is gone. That’s the leading edge of the bell curve of mortality, which will start to expand soon.

But death shouldn’t have the final word, at least not right now. Another way to look at it is that 90% of us have survived those 45 years, mostly as decent folk leading interesting lives, I hope.

Closer to home, in fact at home, how does our garden grow?

Not bad. Not bad at all.