Elly May Can't Be Gone

I had the television on, but I really wasn't paying much attention, when I heard the name of Donna Douglas mentioned. My eyes quickly turned toward the television. When it was reported that she had passed away at the age of 82, I was stunned. I just couldn't believe that like Buddy Ebsen (Jed), Irene Ryan (Granny), Raymond Bailey (Milburn. Drysdale), Nancy Kulp (Jane Hathaway) and Harriet MacGibbon (Margaret Drysdale), Elly May had left us too. I felt a bit confused, since I couldn't even imagine Elly May being 82; it just didn't seem possible. Why it seemed like just a few years ago that she was climbing trees, whopping Jethro (played by Max Baer, Jr.), tending to her critters and making sponge cakes out of real sponges. She couldn't have been 82, no way! But then reality, that nasty bearer of truth, which spares no one the cruelest of truths, smacked me upside the head, jolting me to admit that it's been about four and a half decades since Donna Douglas last wore flannel shirts and tight bluejeans on the television series, "The Beverly Hillbillies," one of my all time favorite shows. We can hate reality all we want, but we can never run fast enough to escape it. Even Elly May couldn't run that fast.* R.I.P.

* Donna Douglas was born Doris Smith.

 

Donna Douglas in 1967 ... By ABC Network - ebay.com, front of photo, back of photo, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30684960

WORD HISTORY: 

Darling-This word is really simply "dear," with the suffix "ling."  In Old English (Anglo-Saxon) it was "deorling," which later became "derling," before the modern form with "a" took place in the latter 1500s. The suffix "-ling" is from Old Germanic "linga," simply used on many nouns, but it also frequently was a diminutive; that is, it was used to make something "smaller, younger or beloved;" for instance, "duckling," for "young duck." German and Dutch also have "-ling." This is the link to the article with the Word History for "dear:"  http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2014/12/some-memories-of-germany.html