As you have probably heard or read other places, the last of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack stepped onto that big stage in the sky this week. Joey Bishop, the resident emcee and comedian of the bunch, was 89 when he passed away on Wednesday. As I've mentioned before in this silly space, I was and remain a big Frank Sinatra fan which, by association, made me a Rat Pack fan. The first Sinatra song I remember latching onto was That's Life. I would walk around the house singing about being "a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king." Of course, the lyrics are a bit less swaggering when delivered by a five year old with an Oreo in one hand and a glass of milk in the other. This was back in the days when radio stations were not so specialized. The local station my dad helped start, for example, was called WVLR-Wisconsin's Very Live Radio! and it had an old-time music show which featured polkas and schottisches and waltzes, a country & western program, a rock n' roll hour, a Swap Shop show. There was also Penny's Patter, hosted by a local woman minister. It was a talk show but not like we endure these days. There was not much political talk or stuff about national issues. Certainly, there were no naughty words unless you count "Doggone it." The issues Pastor Penny covered were usually along the lines of getting kids to do chores around the house or how to macrame' a decorative toilet paper holder that looked like a purple poodle. The most controversial issue that came up from time to time was what to do about the aroma wafting into town from a nearby pig farm. That topic got callers using phrases like "It really stinks!" and "They're just a bunch of pigs!" However, as opposed to today's talk show callers, those words were meant literally not figuratively. But, I digress...I do that an awful lot in these things. If I drove like I write, I'd never get to work. It was on that little, hometown station I first heard Sinatra sing.

I did a documentary about Sinatra when I got to high school. This was back well before digital cameras and computer editing. In fact, my school days came not long after the "Look! Me draw picture on cave wall" era of communication. It was in the making of that special project, that I really started to learn about the other members of the Rat Pack. Robin & The Seven Hoods became a favorite movie about that time. Over the years, I was lucky to see Sinatra perform live a few times. I also got to see Sammy Davis, Jr. and Dean Martin when I lived in Las Vegas. Never saw the other two swingers, Peter Lawford and, the last of the breed, Joey Bishop.

Of course, what goes around comes around. When our now 17 year-old son, Taylor, was in second grade, he and his art teacher would occasionally have little run-ins. This is the same child who, today in high school, is a grand debater and he was honing those skills in elementary school. Once, the teacher said draw a picture of space. Most of the kids drew a bunch of planets and stars. Taylor drew one giant planet with a small moon in orbit around it. The teacher thought he was just being a pill and, maybe he was, but as he ended up arguing in the principal's office, the assignment just said "space" and this was his idea of "space." Not long after that, the instructor gave the class the following assignment: draw a picture of your favorite team. She was probably looking for the Royals or the Chiefs or some other assemblage of athletes. Well, Taylor turned in a picture of three men in suits, ties and fedoras. The teacher thought Taylor was, again, being a bit mischievous and asked "Okay, Taylor, exactly what team is this?" He responded by labelling the three guys with his crayon: "Deano. Frankie. Sammy." His favorite "team" was The Rat Pack.