2016 Roster

 “Like a bird on a wire / Like a drunk in a midnight choir / I have tried, in my way, to be free...."
                               Leonard Cohen "Bird on a Wire"

2016 has been the dying year of Leonard Cohen and John Glenn,  Patty Duke and Morley Safer, Pat Conroy and Elie Wiesel, Gwen Ifill and Harper Lee, Mohamed Ali and Merle Haggard,  and so many more.

Every year's end, the names of the famous are read--movie stars, makers of art, music and literature, and those who left marks of other kinds--all part of a graduation roster for those whose year it was to peel away from the tribe.

Many left behind literature and music--Elie Wiesel's "Night," Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" and Pat Conroy's "Prince of Tides."   One stepped on the moon.  Morley and Gwen interviewed presidents and politicians.  Mohammed Ali was a prize fighter, Patty Duke a child movie star.  Here's to the graduates of the class of 2016--in their own words:

"It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you.”  Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird

"Some people, you have to grit your teeth in order to stay in the same room as them, but you get on and ask the questions you assume most of the people watching want to ask. " Morley Safer

"I'm not interested in my legacy. I made up a word: 'live-acy.' I'm more interested in living."  John Glenn

"I'm a teacher and a writer; my life is words. When I see the denigration of language, it hurts me, and it's easy to denigrate a word by trivializing it."  Elie Wiesel

"It isn't the mountain ahead to climb that wears you out; it's the pebble in your shoe."  Mohammed Ali

"I don't really understand that process called reincarnation but if there is such a thing I'd like to come back as my daughter's dog."  Leonard Cohen