belated ululate!

On December 29 last year, soccer great Pelé died at the age of 82. Wikipedia tells me his real name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento. I remember him from way back when I was but a young thing; it's sad to know that yet another fixture from my childhood has gone. Pelé is considered one of the greatest soccer players—or should I say footballers—of all time. He was functionally ambidextrous on the field and almost guaranteed to score at least one goal per game. I never followed Pelé's career after his soccer heyday, but he was apparently involved in humanitarian work. In 1976, he was in Nigeria during a coup, and he escaped the country disguised as a pilot. Politically speaking, Pelé was accused of being both a leftist and a conservative. I have a soft spot for the harder-to-read celebrities. A national hero in Brazil, Pelé attended the unveiling of a statue of him in 2018. The man played his heart out, but he eventually succumbed to colon cancer. RIP, Pelé. Much respect.