So I'm at that age now where I mimic what I saw my grandmother and great aunt often do when I was a kid. On Sunday mornings, they'd sit at the kitchen table with their hot cup of coffee, carefully lay out the Woonsocket Call newspaper and after a very brief scan of the headlines on page one, they'd inevitably gravitate soon to the obituary page. There I'd many times hear them quietly mutter a soft "aww" as they noticed someone they knew, perhaps not very well, but knew nonetheless, that had just died.
Only thing is I don't really know people, never really have known too many. But TV and movie personalities are the folks I do remember from my youth and beyond. Also, I live in the digital age and, as such, I don't subscribe to an old fashioned local print newspaper... I scan the aggregated headlines on Google News. And the people I "grew up with" albeit they on the boob tube, me watching them like the good sheeple I was, have all pretty much had their day in the sun quite past them so when they do now pass, their obit mention gets a blurb at the bottom of the stack of blocks. Like today's... Gene Shalit. And earlier so far this year: Ted Turner, Catherine O'Hara, Jesse Jackson and Demond Wilson to name just a few... the one's that made me "aww," click their link, read their obit article, sip my coffee, and move on, just like my mémère and mataunt, who they themselves have many decades now past had their "awws" whispered for them.