(pencils Marcia Strassman down for my 2013 list)
One weird thing I hadn’t noticed about Welcome Back, Kotter was the lack of age difference on the show. Of course a lot of high school shows have actors who are way too old to be students but Gabe Kaplan, who played the teacher, was only four years older than Ron Palillo, who played a student*. Marcia Strassman, who played Kaplan’s wife, is three years younger than Kaplan. Which means she could have been cast to play one of his students as easily as she played his wife.
*Palillo was 26 when the show started. Robert Heyges was 24, Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs was 22, and John Travolta was 21. And they were all still playing high school students four years later when the series ended.
Didn’t see this mentioned, and nobody had him that I could see, but legendary comic artist Joe Kubert passed away at age 15 points
LOCHTE, how’d you make it to Ohio that quickly?
Of course it was mentioned, and even had a couple of follow ups. 
Oops, all that talk about Billy Graham and I skipped right over that. Welllll…has anyone mentioned that SF author Harry Harrison is no more?
Dang..meant to say that Harry Harrison is Soylent Green, but missed the edit window 
Prince Phillip is back in the hospital.
(sorry, no link. they are a pain when posting from my phone.)
Sorry Missed edit window. Bob Birch was a Bassist who worked for Elton John.
Rev. Sun Myung Moon has been hospitalized.
Jean Merrill, who wrote such children’s books as The Pushcart War and The Toothpaste Millionaire, has died at the age of 89.
Joan Roberts dies at 95; female lead in original ‘Oklahoma!’
Joan Roberts played the high-spirited young farm girl Laurey in the 1943 production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s long-running musical.
Holy shit! I (like I’ll bet a lot of others) read, “***John ***Roberts dies …”
Can you imagine the circus we’d have on our hands if the conservative Supreme Court Chief Justice snuffed it three month before the presidential election?
Is it horrble that I shot my arms in the air with excitement?
Blood Sweat and Tears Sax playerBill Tillmandead at 65.
There’ll be one child born to carry on. To carry on. (Know he wasn’t there for that one).
Did he go down gamblin’? I hope he got a piece of the sky.
I can’t imagine the scramble to choose another justice before the election. Odds are though that nobody could get confirmed in such a short time. Do you suppose the White House keeps a list just in case such an event occurs?
Awwww. 
*The Pushcart War *is one of my favourite books.
I remember my 2nd Grade teacher reading that to us - one chapter each Friday. I still think of it when I see a Semi next to a Sports Car