Rosemary Clooney and Ted Williams, both gone in the same week. Here were two of the very best at what they did. As a kid in the late '50s and early '60s, I caught them as they were just past their primes, but they were formidable figures that we knew and appreciated, along with Sinatra, Garland, Mays, and Mantle.

More recently, I admired their toughness as age took its toll. Williams, the old coot, still had that winning smile that masked his stubbornness. Clooney made records right up to the end, with a voice gone husky in a lovable grandma kind of way. With Ted passes so much knowledge about the art of baseball, particularly how to hit one coming at you at 90 miles an hour; with Rosemary, so much knowledge about the history of popular music, and a wealth of experience in making the song do what its writer intended it to do -- sometimes more.

I can hear them now coming over a staticky radio in a '59 Oldsmobile cruising down the Garden State Parkway headed for Seaside Heights. We kids are jumping around in the back seat, the big folks up front, windows rolled down, maybe a cigar going.

So long, friends. We will miss you.