Just a few things lingering on the DW notepad …

** DORIS DAY, et. al.: Here at DW, we hate it when aging stars move on to the Happy Hunting Ground — probably not as much as they do — but at 97 years of age, this one didn’t exactly come as shocking news. I wasn’t around for all of that Pillow Talk business, but she was America’s Sweetheart for a certain period of time and that’s gotta count for something. I picked up the scent in time for the Doris Day Show, which ran on CBS for five years until 1973, a period of time in which I had little to do other than watch TV and do homework. Come to find out, she hated doing the show but had to do it because her no-good ex-husband had put her in so much debt that she didn’t have any choice. I remember a lot of “Que Sera, Sera” and that it co-starred McLean Stevenson before he high-tailed it to M*A*S*H, the last good career move he ever made. Doris basically shut it down after that, spending her time as an animal welfare activist and not playing golf at Pebble Beach, even though she lived down the street.

As if that weren’t enough, there’s word that Peggy Lipton of Mod Squad fame has also passed away at age 72. The Mod Squad was a lot more cutting edge than my pre-teen sensibilities were aware of; I just knew she forever set the bar for blond women with incredibly straight hair. (She married music legend Quincy Jones and is the mother of actress Rashida Jones.)

Coincidentally, both the Doris Day Show and Mod Squad ran during the same five-year period, yet couldn’t have been any more dissimilar.

** TECH vs. LSU: It was announced last week that these two will be playing a basketball exhibition game in November to help raise money for the tornado relief efforts in Ruston. Good for LSU, which has been going through some issues of its own with the basketball program lately. But along comes Tech asking for a solid and they came through. Not every school would do that.

** CONFERENCE FINALS: Do you think the suits at the NBA are thrilled at halving a team from Canada (Toronto), a team from almost Canada (Milwaukee) and a team in one of the smallest markets in the country (Portland) as three of the four remaining? They say the NBA is too predictable. Tell me again who predicted that before the season started?

Though Golden State and Milwaukee are the favorites, I have a sneaking suspicion that one of those could get taken down.