In Memory Of ...

[alexora]

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix passed away 49 years ago, aged 27 (making him a fully paid up member of Club 27).

When they made him, they broke the mold.

You Tube

You Tube

You Tube

You Tube

You Tube

You Tube

[War...]

Ryan Dunn

Ryan Dunn

[RedMage]

The death that has impacted me the most has been my paternal grandfather which was back at the end of 2014.

I hope he would be proud with how far I've come in five years from where I was when he passed away and where I had been while he was alive.

[JustKelli]

A lot of big names left us in 2019 and this one I just read and remember watching The Mod Squad on YouTube a few times and Peggy Lipton was a big deal way back when. She died in May 11th of this year at age 72. Her and Quincy Jones had 2 daughters including Rashida Jones.

[JustKelli]

This one is a fall from grace but more importantly the need to find cures for certain more evil cancers. Beth Chapman died in late June of throat cancer that quickly spread to her lungs.

[alexora]

Another hero, bullied and discriminated upon, has left us for the great ciub in the sky.

Frank E. Petersen, First Black General in Marines, Dies at 83

Frank E. Petersen Jr., who suffered bruising racial indignities as a military enlistee in the 1950s and was even arrested at an officers’ club on suspicion of impersonating a lieutenant, but who endured to become the first black aviator and the first black general in the Marine Corps, died on Tuesday at his home in Stevensville, Md., near Annapolis. He was 83.

The cause was lung cancer, his wife, Alicia, said.

The son of a former sugar-cane plantation worker from St. Croix, the Virgin Islands, General Petersen grew up in Topeka, Kan., when schools were still segregated. He was told to retake a Navy entrance exam by a recruiter who suspected he had cheated the first time; steered to naval training as a mess steward because of his race; and ejected from a public bus while training in Florida for refusing to sit with the other black passengers in the back.

In 1950, only two years after President Harry S. Truman desegregated the armed forces, he enlisted in the Navy. The Marines had begun admitting blacks during World War II, but mostly as longshoremen, laborers and stewards. By 1951, he recalled, the Marine Corps had only three black officers.

But in 1952, Mr. Petersen, by then a Marine, was commissioned as a second lieutenant and the Marines’ first black aviator. He would go on to fly 350 combat missions during two tours, in Korea and Vietnam (he safely bailed out after his F-4 Phantom was shot down in 1968), and to become the first of his race in the corps to command a fighter squadron (the famous Black Knights), an air group and a major base.

Less confident men might not have persevered.

An instructor flunked him in training and predicted he would never fly. On his first day at the Marine Corps Air Station in El Toro, Calif., a captain claimed he was masquerading as a lieutenant and had him arrested. In Hawaii, a landlord refused to rent a house to him and his wife, and admitted to a subsequent prospect that he did so because they were black.

Racial discrimination was not all that General Petersen had to overcome.

He discovered while training that he was afflicted with acrophobia — fear of heights. And while he longed to be a general, he was happier wielding a joystick than working as a desk jockey.

After 38 years, he retired from the corps in 1988 as a three-star lieutenant general. He was the senior ranking aviator in the Marine Corps and the Navy, commander of the Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va., and special assistant to the chief of staff. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.

Much had changed in America since 1950, he recalled in his autobiography (written with J. Alfred Phelps), “Into the Tiger’s Jaw” (1998) — and the military, originally recalcitrant, had led the charge.

Promotions, job assignments and disproportionate punishments “were the three areas where racism was most likely to rear its ugly head for blacks then and, to some extent, still does today,” he wrote.

Appointed a special assistant to the commandant for minority affairs in 1969, he recalled, he sought to eradicate barriers among recruits from different backgrounds, with palpable improvement.

“The signs of it are subtle,” he wrote. “As you go off a base, look around. If you see a white kid and a black kid going off together to drink a beer, you know that you’ve achieved a degree of success.”

Obviously there has been progress, he said, and the military has been a model for integration.

Had there been enough progress?

“Never.”

Frank Emmanuel Petersen Jr. was born in Topeka on March 2, 1932. His father, who was born in the American Virgin Islands, was a radio repairman and a General Electric salesman. His mother, the former Edythe Southard, was a teacher.

Young Frank experienced the world beyond Kansas largely through radio, and his perspective was frequently refracted through race.

Naturally, the family rooted for Joe Louis, he said, because “where else but in the ring could a black man kick a white man’s ass with impunity and walk away smiling with a pocket full of money?”

He was 9 when Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941, and while he was unsure what war was, he knew the Japanese had done America wrong. “I was scared,” he recalled, “but happy that it hadn’t been black people who’d done it.”

He enrolled in Washburn University in Topeka, but when he turned 18 and no longer needed his parents’ permission (his mother had opposed him joining the military), he enlisted in the Navy.

He began as a seaman apprentice and electronics technician and in 1951 entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Program.

He graduated in 1967 from George Washington University and later received his master’s degree, both while in the Marines.

General Petersen’s marriage to the former Eleanor Burton ended in divorce. Survivors include their children, Gayle, Dana, Lindsey and Frank III; his second wife, the former Alicia Downes, and their daughter, Monique; a grandson; and three great-grandchildren.

After leaving the military, General Petersen became a vice president for corporate aviation at Dupont de Nemours. He retired in 1997.

In a video interview for the National Visionary Leadership Project, he reflected on becoming the first black Marine Corps general and the only one for nearly a decade until he retired.

“Just to be able to say you kicked down another door was such a great satisfaction,” he said, but it was also a challenge. “Whereas you thought you could perform before, now you must perform.”

Source:

http://nytimes.com/2015/08/27/us/frank-e-petersen-first-black-general-in-marines-dies-at-83.html?

[mathushan]

Originally Posted by JustKelli

Adult film star Jessica Jaymes dead at 43. RIP hun.

TMZ was the first to report on Jaymes’ death on September 18. The website says that paramedics were called to Jaymes’ home in the San Fernando Valley on the afternoon of September 17 after a 911 caller said James had had a heart attack. The caller was a friend who said he had gone to check on Jaymes as he had not heard from her in a few days. Jaymes was pronounced dead at the scene. The TMZ report adds that responders found prescription drugs at the scene. Jessica Jaymes’ real name was Jessica Redding.

Jaymes final Instagram post came on September 18. The photo showed Jaymes in a make-up chair while saying that she had recently been on a vacation for a few days.

[JustKelli]

Condolences to the families of the 4 Chinese tourists killed in a horrific bus crash yesterday in Utah.

Speedy recovery to the remaining victims.

[alexora]

32 years ago today, legendary US bass guitar player Jaco Pastorius passed away aged 35.

An innovative and outstanding musician, Jaco started out on drums as a kid, but he injured his wrist playing football when he was thirteen.

The damage was severe enough to warrant corrective surgery and prevented him to be a sticks man so he switched to the bass.

Pastorius had a habit of provoking bar fights and allowing himself to be beaten up.
After sneaking onstage at a Carlos Santana concert on September 11, 1987 and being kicked out of the venue, he made his way to the Midnight Bottle Club in Wilton Manors, Florida.

He was denied entry to the club, and is reported to have kicked in a glass door, resulting in a violent confrontation with Luc Havan, the club's manager who happened to be a martial arts expert.

Pastorius was taken to the ER at Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale with multiple facial fractures and injuries to his right eye and left arm, and went into a coma.

A few days later he died of a brain haemorrhage. He was taken off life support and died on September 21, 1987 at the age of 35.

Luc Havan pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 22 months in prison and five years' probation. After four months, he got parole and was released for good behaviour.

Here you can see what an amazing talent we lost that day in 1987:

You Tube

You Tube

[JustKelli]

If you are a football fan or a fan of NASCAR



Fernando*Ricksen died on September 18 at the age of 43 following a lengthy battle with motor neurone disease.

The Dutchman played for a few clubs in his native Holland, but is best known to British football fans following his six year spell at SPL side Rangers. In 2014, he was enrolled into the Rangers FC Hall of Fame.



NASCAR legend Mike Stefanik died aged 61 on September 15, following a plane crash in Rhode Island, USA.

Mike had a career spanning more than 30 years and is a nine time NASCAR winner.