Chipping Away At My Past, James Garner Dies

If we're lucky, we have long lives with at least relatively good health. Our personal history, also known as our past, accumulates many memories stored in the files of our minds. An event takes place or a name is mentioned, and you recall things or people from your past, often, but not always, faster than your computer browser can recount all of the websites you've visited in your last session, but without any disclaimer that they're not spying on you, and that they only want you to "have a good browsing experience, with things tailored to your likes," which seems to include all sorts of ads (I'm sort of paraphrasing here). No ads are posted in our minds, and there is certainly no spying, just the memories. We have now learned that actor James Garner has passed away at the age of 86.

James Garner acted in many television and movie roles during his career, but when I saw the headline about his death, "Maverick" and "The Rockford Files" immediately were hauled out of my mind's database. As a child in the 1950s, I watched the original episodes of "Maverick," an ABC television Western with many a lighthearted moment, all in black and white back then, where Garner played gambler Bret Maverick. After he left the show he remained in public view in other performances, including television commercials. In the 1970s he reentered the television big time, playing private detective Jim Rockford in a hit series which also had many a lighthearted moment. Coming almost fifteen years after he left "Maverick," this popular NBC series made Garner a star to those of a new generation, while retaining those fans from his earlier days, a trend which continued in the 1980s and 1990s, as he played other roles, including reprising Bret Maverick in a television movie and a television series.

So another part of my childhood and later life has passed from the scene, chipping away at those still living from my past, but James Garner remains a great memory in my mind.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/alan-light/210409111/

Photo by Alan Light of James Garner in 1987 (The Rockford Files ended in 1980)

WORD HISTORY:

Maverick-The use of "maverick" is from the name of an American cattle owner, Samuel Maverick, in the 1800s, who would not brand his cattle; thus the meaning, "a person who goes against convention." The name's origin is sketchy, but it is "perhaps" from Celtic.