Graemme Marshall
???? - April 26, 2015
Graemme Marshall was my church pastor in Calgary during the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was very good to me personally and those years were the best of my Christian journey. I spoke at church services several times per year delivering sermonettes. He was always supportive and encouraging. Of particular note was the time when he took my side of a disagreement I had with the assistant pastor.
I suspected that Mr. Marshall occassionally suffered from bouts of depression, as did I. When I went to him for counselling he recommended the book FEELING GOOD - The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns. That book significantly helped me and it sparked a life long interest in self-help and adult development.
John Nash
June 13, 1928 - May 23, 2015
Like many other people, I learned about John Nash from the film A Beautiful Mind, winner of the 2001 Academy Award for Best Picture. Nash was a mathematician who made important contributions to game theory. And Nash suffered from severe mental illness, paranoid schizophrenia.
At that time the film was playing, I was a Board Member with the Canadian Mental Health Association, Calgary Region. The movie was much discussed in the mental health community I was part of. There was a general consensus amongst my colleagues that it did an excellent job of accurately portraying the illness.
James Last
April 17, 1929 - June 9, 2015
In the time after cassettes and before streaming, Pat loved shopping for CDs. We had two revolving towers of those discs when we moved to Mexico. We had several of the James Last Orchestra, music I much enjoyed.
Yogi Berra
May 12, 1925 - September 22, 2015
As a boy growing up in Nova Scotia, I listened to baseball games on my transistor radio. I was a New York Yankees fan. It seems as if I have known Yogi Berra my whole life. because he is quoted so often.
He transcended life as a baseball player and became famous for his sayings, statements that were simultaneously nonsensical and wise.
Some of my favorite Yogi-isms:
It ain't over 'til it's over.
When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
The future ain’t what it used to be.
If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.
I never said most of the things I said.