Being still somewhat youngish, there are few people that I open up to on the Obit page that have impacted my life greatly (except maybe musicians and TV actors from the 70's). Seriously, all of the great movers and shakers out there, industrialists, world leaders, inventors, Nobel Prize winners, I feel little connection to. Yesterday, when a friend told me that Gary Gygax had passed, the high school, geeky girl in me felt the end......

If Maila Nurmi had never created her alter ego, Vampira, I wouldn't know how to act, dress or put on make-up. As the Misfits sang: “Two inch nails, micro waist, with a pale white feline face, inclination eyebrows to there.” Nor would it have been as cool to be into all the weird, spooky, horror show stuff that I’ve loved since childhood. We all need role models, and without mine, I would have been......