Suzanne, Georgia and John

Celebrity obits usually leave me thinking, "Oh, that's too bad..." but hearing about Suzanne Pleshette, Georgia Frontiere and John Stewart all in one weekend got me thinking about all sorts of things.

We loved Suzanne Pleshette as Bob Newhart's wife Emily, especially when she came back for the finale of "Newhart." But we really liked her in the 1969 movie "If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium." While she always wore pants or long skirts and boots as Emily, she actually showed her legs (which she didn't need to hide) in one of the last scenes of the movie.

We didn't realize she'd been married to Tom Poston, but can imagine what fun they must have had together over the last few years.

The oft-married Georgia Frontiere is another story, and the official obits leave lots of room to read between the lines. She came from a show-biz family, and spent many of her early years as a singer and dancer. In 1957 old Joe Kennedy introduced the five-times-married Georgia to Carroll Rosenbloom, the wealthy and dashing owner of the Baltimore Colts. How did old Joe come to know Georgia, inquiring minds want to know, and what was behind that magnanimous introduction? Mr. Rosenbloom eventually divorced his wife, married Georgia, swapped the Colts to Robert Irsay for the Rams (at Georgia's urging, some folks have said), and then mysteriously drowned in the surf. Georgia was able to have Carroll's son Steve, who grew up in the Colts organization, cut out of the will, leaving her as sole owner of a football team. We'll never know, but I like to think that if Mr. Rosenbloom had never run afoul of Georgia, the Colts would still be in Baltimore and Steve would have assumed his rightful place as owner.

Then there's John Stewart, who as part of the Kingston Trio was responsible for a large part of what's popularly known as the soundtrack of my life. Yes, I liked early rock and roll as much as the next kid, but my friends and I liked to sing, and the Kingston Trio gave us lots of great material.

In the summer of 1962 I was part of a group of American girls that went to Norway for the summer, by ship, which is how it was done then. There were several New England girls in our group, so we spent much of our time at sea singing about Charlie on the MTA. Coming home, as the ship took us farther from the friends we had made in Norway, we found ourselves singing "500 Miles" over and over.

The next summer I went with my grandparents to Pine Knob Inn in Canadensis, PA, for a week in July. There was a big flat rock in the middle of Brodheads Creek where we kids liked to hang out after lunch -- and sing. One of our favorite songs that summer was "One More Town..."

"If there's one more town, I'll be going,
Fight for the women, I'll be there.
If there's one more song, I'll be singing.
I know I'm going but I don't know where."

I hope John Stewart is in a good place where he can keep on singing.