Rant #3,689: Lost

First, let me go over a personal matter with you.

As you know, my son is still looking for a job, and it is difficult enough for him to find one that meets his abilities, but it becomes even more difficult when the organizations set up to help this specific group are completely incompetent themselves.

Yesterday, my son had an apppitment with such an agency, and we trudged over to their offices in the pouring rain.

We got there, and we're immediately told that the person that we were to meet with was not there, no one else in the Vocational Department was there, and that there was no one there to speak with us.

The director of the organization actually came out to tell us this, and I showed her my emails, which proved that the mistake was not ours, it was their mistake.

We left the building, and I was not too happy. I am not holding my breath with this place; we went there several years ago, they didn't help my son then, so based on whst just happened, why should I have any hope now?

So, all it amounted to was another wasted effort, another "lost" opportunity.

And the other day, we "lost" another piece of my childhood, when it was announced that Ruth Buzzi died.

If the name doesn't ring a bell, she was one of the funniest people on television during the late 1960s into the mid 1970s and beyond.

Buzzi was part of the "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" troupe of comic actors who were the engine that made this show the revolutionary comedy classic that it was during the six seasons the original show was on.

The hour-long show broke just about every barrier there was related to the intertwining of comedy into the many topics that it hammered, and Buzzi was the backbone if this cast, the only member to appear on every show during its run.

Whether she played a drunken, entitled bar patron or an overly self-important gossip columnist or an over-inflated busty floozy, Buzzi kept you laughing non-stop.

But her greatest character was "Gladys Ormphby," a downtrodden woman who wore figureless clothes and a fishnet on her head.

She was completely unattractive, except to Artie Johnson's equally downtrodden "Tyrone F. Horneigh," the pervert who tried to win her affection ... but would often get hit in the head with Ormphby's purse for his efforts.

Buzzi was such an adept comedienne that she made a character you should feel sorry for into one that you actually laugh about even when she wore a frown on her face.

These two characters were so popular that they were featured on record in character, were spun off into "The Nitwits" cartoon series, and Buzzi also appeared on "The Dean Martin Roasts," hitting the likes of Martin and Frank Sinatra with her purse because of their supposed "randy" behavior.

Buzzi later appeared on a slew of other shows as different characters, including on "Sesame Street" and "Saved By the Bell."

I was a Facebook friend of hers, and she was very involved in her site, answering queries from fans herself.

You knew something was up when her husband of many years put up a post about a week ago saying that his wife was no longer well enough to actively participate on Facebook anymore, and then the word came out that she had passed.

Sadly, she had Alzheimer's Disease, but the bizarre fluctuations of that malady really never showed up on Facebook.

I remember first seeing her on "That Girl" in a recurring role as the neighbor of "Ann Marie" (Marlo Thomas), and pretty much from there, she went onto "Laugh-In," and the rest is history.

So another piece of my youth is "lost," and as I described earlier, my son "lost" another opportunity.

Two different losses, but both hit me between the eyes.