Legacy MattersOne of the better end-of-the-year wrap-up stories is the New York Times and its The Lives They Lived that offers small obituaries for some lesser-known lives.
From Liz Claiborne who brought "separates" to the fashion world and the retail stores where women clamored to buy them, grateful for all the individual pieces, bright colors died in the same dye lot.
To Gloria Connors who while pregnant with her to-become-famous son Jimmy, built a tennis court behind her house and went on to become his coach.
“She dealt with the guys, and, you know, my mom was 5-foot-1, but damn right she was tough. Nobody was used to the best guy out there being taught by a lady. ...It was me and her against the world.”
And Joybubbles who was a small blind boy who loved the telephone and with his perfectly pitched ears, spoke to it in its own language, becoming the first phone freak.
When he discovered that the University of Pittsburgh had the complete run of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” on tape, he went on a pilgrimage: he rented an apartment nearby and spent hours in the library listening to every episode, sometimes hugging a stuffed globe, huddled under a blanket.
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“Take care of each other, stay strong, find some time to play,” he says at the end of most recordings. “Don’t let God laugh alone.”