Richard Dawson died two days ago. He was remembered by the news outlets as the smooching host of Family Feud in the 1970s. But before that he was a regular panelist on Match Game, and before that, Cpl. Newkirk in Hogan's Heroes 
, which is the Richard Dawson I first met.
I remember watching an episode of Hogan's Heroes in which Newkirk was dressed as a woman in the back of a tarp-covered truck and told Col. Hogan he was having "the vapors." I have no idea to this day what the vapors are, but my dad must have; it was one of a handful of times I heard him laugh out loud at something on TV.
Sadder than the passing of a friendly childhood personality are the TV eulogies delivered by people who didn't remember him and don't care.
Dawson died from esophageal cancer, the same cancer that took Dad.
Dad was a teetotaler and nonsmoker.
Cancer doesn't discriminate.
Started 2012-06-03
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