The headlines today are rampant with celebrity gossip as per usual.  Mindy McCready has been arrested for a probation violation; Heather Locklear is being busted for a DUI; and Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid are using the press for a verbal sparring match.  This only days after one of the all time American greats has passed, it seems without much of a blip on the radar.  A great man is gone.  Why am I writing about it here on my family blog?  The question should be why isn’t everyone writing about it.
Sure the man didn’t do drugs, cheat on his wife or solicit prostitutes for sex and no he wasn’t a secret cross-dresser or a bulimic or an alcohol abuser.  He was quite simply a fine and decent family man.  He was a man with a talent who aspired to use that talent to help others.  He cared about the environment, he cared about his family, and he cared about strangers who were in difficult predicaments.  Not only did he care but also he put his money where his mouth was or rather where ours was.  I for one loved his salad dressing.  That’s right I bought it.  I bought it even though it cost me a dollar and a quarter more than the store brand.  I bought it because he gave 100 percent of his proceeds to those in need, that being the case I figured I could fork over a dollar and a quarter.
He married his wife over fifty years ago.  Not once in fifty years did we hear about anything other then them having the utmost respect for each other.  This from a man who quite frankly could have had anybody.  In fact if I was single and so was he, he could have had me last week.  (I ran this by my husband and he seemed okay with the theoretical thought maybe because Paul was in his eighties I’m not sure or maybe because he’s just so awesome- Paul that is). 
A great man has passed.  A man who had a great talent on the stage, a man who treated his family and wife with the utmost respect and love by all visible accounts and a man who gave to those around him.  Now that’s what I call a legacy.  That’s what I call newsworthy.