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01/25/2004: "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi"

Fame is as transitory as any other treasure laid up on this earth. The profile may be on every coin in the empire, but time will efface the name and the memory been as the image remains. So, I was asked, are you related to the singer? No one thinks of him much any more, nor of the politician of the same name who was prominent in the same era. (Premier of Alberta! There's a way to be distinguished and obscure at the same time!) But, back in the late forties, my Dad and uncle embarked on a liner bound for England, where their parents lived. There was a tentative rap on the cabin door. A star-struck passenger had seen the famous name on the manifest, and she asked, was it true? Could she speak to him? My uncle presented himself to her: not the charismatic performer from the Metropolitan Opera, but a college kid with a gift for math. And now, fifty or so years later, he's as famous as any other John Brownlee.