Another pair of obituaries I should have mentioned earlier

Tony Dyson's death was announced on Thursday. Who is he, you may ask? I have to admit I'd never heard of him either, but it turns out that he's the man who designed R2-D2, the Star Wars robot, or at least, the one that looks even less human than C3-PO, if I'm spelling that right. I have to admit that I've never been all that interested in the Star Wars movies. I saw Return of the Jedi in the theater with my sister, who I remember had a thing for the Ewoks. But I never went to the theater to see any of the prequels, and haven't seen the most recent one either. Still, R2-D2 is an iconic character, as I think most people would recognize it. Dyson was 68

Author Pat Conroy died on Friday at the age of 70. Several of Conroy's books were turned into movies, with probably the most famous of them being The Prince of Tides since it starred Barbra Streisand. Conroy, in the early 1970s, spent some time teaching on one of the barrier islands just off the coast of South Carolina, and wrote a book about that, which was turned into the 1974 film Conrack. That's one of those Fox films that was in the rotation some years back but hasn't shown up in ages. Conroy is also responsible for The Great Santini.