RIP- Ann Richards

So I've called my university and they have me on hold (as usual). I'm listening to the university radio station half-heartedly. Until they mention former Governor Ann Richards. In past tense. Now, y'all know I'm always a day late and several dollars short, but I really didn't know Gov. Richards died yesterday.

She was governor when I was an undergraduate and we loved, loved, loved her. Not (primarily) for political reasons--my friends and I were still voting primarily how our parents taught us then--but because of her humor and personality. She was the last Texas governor to possess those things, before the current Shame-upon-the-Nation unseated (I refuse to say "defeated"--I reserve that term for her successor) her. She died, at 73, after a battle with esophageal cancer.

I remember noting with some sadness the loss of Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King so closely together. In four months, Texas Democrats have lost Lloyd Bentsen and Ann Richards.

Try as I might, I have no snappy ending for that.