ululate!

Local newscaster Jim Vance, a fixture from my childhood, has died at age 75. Not satisfied with this haul, the Grim Reaper has also just claimed actor John Heard, 72, who was at the center of an assault scandal many years ago. I remember Jim Vance with fondness for his stolid-but-kind demeanor, but I lost track of him when the 1990s came around. As for Heard—I vaguely remember watching a video of his performance in 1979's "The Scarlet Letter" back when I was in school. More recently, I recall his guest-starring appearance on "Battlestar Galactica," where he played an engineer who suddenly finds himself the captain of his ship when the previous captain dies. He was a capable actor—never quite the mighty leading man, but appearing in some of the bigger films of recent decades ("Big," "Home Alone," "Awakenings," etc.).

These deaths both come as a surprise, and these days, there must be something wrong if you're dying in your 70s. In the world of old people, seventy-something is young.