Cleaning out the inbox-Non-Sports Edition

We continue to work on that inbox and we move now to an all non-sports inbox, which is pretty popular from what I have been told!

We start with 13th Dimension's article on the 1970's comic- Batman Family, which was a favorite of mine then as a child.
The post talks a little bit about Batman Family and then a brief interview with Bob Rozakis, who did some of the writing for the book.
The comic was generally double-sized, so you received a great day for your fifty cents in mid-70's currency and it had stories from the various members of the Batman Family even down to the gimmick characters-like Bat-Mite!
I even had as a kid, the issue to the left, although it isn't in my collection today.
I also have a fond memory of a Superman Family comic that was a favorite of mine, before going away in a story that I'll tell one day IF three people would ask me to (that'll tell you who's reading this!), but I was a much bigger Batman fan than Superman even to this day.

Marc Maron's WTF podcast had a recent guest from "The Office" days as Jenna Fischer (Pam) did his show.
Fischer has a new book out (The Actor's Life), so she is doing lots of media work promoting the book.
Fischer's Pam Beesley Halpert was named the greatest female character in television history by my Fightheads partner Ramon Malpica on a recent episode which is extremely high praise!

Two goodbyes from the inbox.

Goodbye to astronaut Dick Gordon at the age of 88.
Gordon was a Gemini and Apollo astronaut and was the module pilot on Apollo 10, which is most widely thought of as the fun mission among the crews.
Gordon would have walked on the moon on Apollo 18, had the final two missions not been canceled by budget cuts to NASA.
Gordon also was involved in one of the strangest stories in sports as after his resignation from NASA, Gordon was hired as the general manager of the New Orleans Saints despite never having worked in football at any level.
I know fans under 30 have a hard time realizing this, but for the 70's and mid 80's the Saints were looked at in a very similar manner as fans look at the Browns today as they never had a winning record for the first twenty years of their existence and much of it was for reasons like hiring an astronaut to run football personnel operations.
Almost like hiring a beancounter without experience to do the same today.
The Saints would never win more than five games when Gordon was running the franchise.

Goodbye to the "Fight Doctor" Ferdie Pacheco at the age of 89.
Pacheco was part of the well-known team around Muhammad Ali as his doctor, but might be even better known as the color commentator on NBC boxing telecasts.
Pacheco also was the person in charge of making fights and buying them for NBC, which at the time of weekend boxing was known for having the smallest budget of the three networks.

Editor's Note: I have plans for posts soon on two more passings that happened in the last two days-Former Ohio State wide receiver Terry Glenn and David Cassidy of Partridge Family fame.

CNN writes of what it is like to visit Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow.
The former Soviet leader has been embalmed since his death in 1924 and it has been one of the tourist stops in Red Square ever since.
On occasion, it comes up to bury Lenin and it usually goes away after time.
I've always wondered just how much work that it takes to keep the corpse from deteriorating.

Esquire writes "You'll never love your E-Reader" and why records and books still have that advantage over the digital version.
The article is right about the loving the physical version and I still love having the physical copy, but I must admit to liking my Kindle and the ease of bringing so many books in one small container.
It's OK to like both.

As I read about E-Readers, Esquire had another article on the up's and down's of Vans Shoes, their history and why they are currently thriving.
My favorite pair of shoes ever were Vans and I only had the model once.

We had a Vans at the local outlet for a while and when they went out of business they were blowing out the inventory.
Ryan was at this store with our friend Joe Plum and saw these shoes.
They decided to take a chance and buy them for me and I loved them!
I still even have them still battered at the house and even though the lack of support that Vans have for us older folks-The Duke Kahanamoku Surf Shoe isn't made anymore, but if I was ever able to find a pair in size 13, I would jump on them-price permitting of course
My favorite shoe of all time-Thanks to Ryan and Joe!
I think I'll go cry now...