86 Pat Hingle*

This morning I saw "Hats off to Pat Hingle" displayed on the marquee of a local diner. For the next 20 minutes of my drive to work, I wondered who Pat Hingle was, and what he/she had done to merit such public recognition. Had he coached his son's pee wee football team to the pee wee Superbowl equivalent? Had she been the top producing real estate agent at the local Century 21 franchise? Had he (be still my beating heart) finally conquered the 8 lb. hamburger at the afore mentioned diner?

A little wiki-research revealed that Pat Hingle had played Comissioner Gordon in several Batman movies. Oh, that Pat Hingle. And that he had survived a near-fatal fall 54 feet down an elevator shaft. Wow.

It turns out that Pat Hingle died yesterday in Carolina Beach, NC from leukemia. So hats off to Pat Hingle, even though to my knowledge he never did conquer that monster hamburger.

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*The title comes from a horrible joke told by a co-worker when I was waiting tables. The kitchen would regularly communicate which items we were out off by writing "86 (whatever we were out of)" on a marker board in the kitchen. When one of the servers heard about Mr. Rogers' death, he wrote added 'Mr. Rogers' to the list. Even though I was sad about his passing, I couldn't help laughing. I will have a hard time explaining this to Mr. Rogers if I make it to Heaven and meet him there.