The Daily Goodbye

Good morning, readers.

After a battery of deaths over the weekend, including the truly estimable Norman Borlaug, what do we have this morning? A notable fly fisherman, whose prose, as quoted, reminds me of Norman Maclean (and if you don't know who he is, you probably shouldn't read tales of fly fishing).

Hollywood types usually leave me cold, but George Eckstein could be an exception. He wrote the final episode of "The Fugitive," which for a long time was the most-watched television episode in history, and produced "Duel," a thrilling made-for-TV movie that gave Stephen Spielberg a significant directing credit at the start of his career.

Soul queen of Chicago kitchens, Helen C. Maybell Anglin fed boxers Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali, entertainers Count Basie and Mahalia Jackso, politicians and regular folks drawn to her restaurant for decades by fried chicken and short ribs, fresh greens and sweet potato pie. She died last Tuesday.

Emil Wanatka was just eight years old when he played catch with John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson. But it was a casual game he remembered the rest of his life, because shortly afterwards, the FBI descended on his family's Wisconsin resort and had a shoot-out with the gangsters. Wanatka, 83, died Tuesday at a Duluth, Minn., hospital of a heart attack.

To those of us following the saga of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (and it's a soap opera, believe me), the news of Christopher Kelly's death came as a shock. Suicide? Accident? Aspirin overdose? His death came just before he headed to prison for failure to properly file income taxes and as his house was being foreclosed. The much-reviled Blago, who tried to swap President Obama's former Senate seat for political favors, stood up for his pal Kelly on the air yesterday.

There's more obit news, but it's time to post.