I blogged a while ago about Jeremiah Mazoli, former University of Oregon quarterback who had misbehaved himself right out of school with a year of football eligibility remaining.

Well, it happened that the University of Mississippi is in dire need  of a quarterback. So, working on the economic theory of "supply and demand" it was obvious that Ole Miss had an opening that Mister Mazoli could fill.

Ahh, but the NCAA officials took a look at this and decided that he could not enroll and play immediately but must take a year off instead.

So Ole Miss appealed this ruling saying that they offered a graduate program that Oregon did not. It is called "Parks and Recreation" and it matters not that this brings to mind thoughts of Hula Hoops and May Poles. The NCAA thought about it for a milli-second and said that sounded just fine to them.

Mister Mazoli is now officially a member of the Ole Miss football team and he'd better be a quick study because the season starts . . . tomorrow.

It was 13 years ago today - August 31, 1997 - that I came back to my hotel room in Long Beach, CA, after a long hot day photographing a blues festival there.

I threw my camera bag on the bed, flipped on the television and then went into the bathroom where I splashed cold water on my face. I walked back into the bed room and looked at the television screen.

It showed what appeared to be a concrete tunnel into darkness. Without turning up the sound, I flipped to another channel. Strangely, it was the same shot . . . a stationary shot of an empty highway going into an underpass.

I was curious by now so I sat on the edge of the bed and turned up the sound.

The commentators were discussing some automobile accident that had happened beyond camera range . . somewhere in that tunnel.

It took a very long time before I had an explanation of what I was watching.

A car carrying Princess Diana, her boyfriend Dodi Fahyet, a bodyguard and the driver had hit a concrete pillar at high speed and she was dead.

Every channel had the same shot because that was the only one available.

I watched for a very long time and then turned off the television and went downstairs for dinner.

It's a vivid memory to this day. There was death in that tunnel and people all over the world were staring at what they could only imagine.

The first thing you have to learn when writing about Stevie Ray Vaughan is to spell his name correct. The jazz singer spelled her name Sarah VAUGHN but Stevie's was a little different.

I never knew him really well although we had a lot of mutual friends. I was managing Buddy Guy and Stevie recorded one of his songs ("Mary Had a Little Lamb"). Stevie was close with Bonnie Raitt (who I also managed) and we shared a friendship with Austin club owner Clifford Antone.

It was back in the middle 1980s when he started to come apart in all the worst ways. He was drinking way too much, had access to plenty of drugs and just messed his professional life right along with his personal one. People who wanted hire him didn't know if he'd show up and, if he did, would it be a brilliant performance of magical entertainment or a miserable exhibit of gross misbehavior.

I wish that I could tell you what turned him around but I really can't. He just got clean and stayed that way. He stopped drinking, stop doping and just turned himself toward creating music that rose to shinning levels. He was getting reviews that began . . ."Not since Jimi Hendrix was at his peak . . ."

Stevie knew every junkie musician on the Austin scene and he went to them all with the offer to pay for their rehabilitation. He didn't preach to them. He just told them how he personally felt being clean, "It's incredible, man. I get up in the morning and I'm not hung over. I feel great and I can't wait to start playing. It's the best feeling in the world, man, and you got to let me help get you there with me."

Some took his offer, most did not but Stevie never felt was it was just job to save the world.

On August 28, 1990, Stevie was playing on a show with Eric Clapton as headliner and Robert Cray as the opening act at Alpine Village, Wisconsin. It was more than capacity with well over 30,000 people packed in for the show. Buddy Guy had driven up from Chicago to see the show and Jimmy Vaughan (Stevie's brother) had flown in with the master mixes of the new CD that the brothers had just finished.

By coincidence, I realized that Bonnie Raitt and Jeff Healy, touring together had an open date between Detroit and Milwaukee, and would be driving right past the Alpine Village facility while I show was happening. I called and suggested that they pull their buses into the back stage area and catch the show.

The concert ended in an unbelievable collection of guitar masters holding forth on stage. Clapton, Stevie Ray and Robert Cray were joined by Buddy Guy and Robert Cray. Jeff Healy and Bonnie Raitt watched from the wings, refusing the offers to join the others.

When the concert ended, there was the usual confusion about who was going to ride on which bus and this was further complicated by the fact that four helicopters were waiting to take people directly back to Chicago.

Helicopter pilot Jeffrey Brown yelled to Vaughan that he had room on his craft. The other seats were grabbed by tour manager Colin Smythe, Clapton security man Nigel Browne and Clapton's agent, Bobby Brooks.

The helicopter took off and simply never gained enough altitude. It turned sideways in an attempt to climb higher but it caught the ridge of the ski slope and crashed, killing all aboard instantly.

In all of the confusing getting the the helicopters and buses out of the facility and dealing with the traffic of the concert, no one noticed that a helicopter had gone down. It was not missed until many hours later when the other three arrived safely in Chicago.

They found the bodies by morning's first night and Clapton was flown in to identify the bodies.

There are so many life lessons to be observed in Stevie Ray Vaughan's death that a pale of mysticism has descended upon that night. He died playing his music in the rarefied atmosphere of his most exalted peers. His brother had brought their new record and they had rejoiced together.

He who had fallen low had raised himself up to the highest level. In departing, he left behind a benchmark to be forever honored, in music and in demonstrating how a life should be lived . . .

Many years, the author Richard Bissell wrote about the virtues of a newspaper. I don't remember where I read this but it was decades ago and way way before computers were even invented and online reading was not even a thought. Anyway, he wrote about how a newspaper could be enjoyed page by page, each article to be savoured. He explained that the best part of reading a newspaper was that after you had taken your full measure of rewards, it was a simply pleasure to fold it up carefully and pass it on to someone else so that they could repeat the process.

I majored in Journalism in college (Boston University) and before my lengthy career in music and photography, I enjoyed some years as a newspaperman in Connecticut and Florida. I must tell you that nothing pumps the adrenaline like writing a front page story right against deadline. The presses are waiting, the linotype guy is waiting, everyone is watching you and no one is talking while you hammer on a manual typewriter. Oh yeah, it was a long time ago but the thrill of that rush is never to be forgotten.

About a year ago, I started to find a Sunday newspaper called "The Oxford Enterprise" in my driveway. The town has a Monday through Friday newspaper ("The Oxford Eagle") which is a mediocre paper staffed with people that I like as friends. I didn't know anyone at "The Oxford Enterprise" but it was one very fine newspaper. There was not a single edition that did not have feature stories that informed me about businesses right here in Oxford that I didn't know where here. It turned me on to small specialty stores, restaurants that I had overlooked and many other local delights.

So I was deeply saddened when today's "Enterprise" brought the news that they were shutting down. Readership was strong but they couldn't find enough advertising revenue in this weak economy.

So that's the way it goes, I guess. I really liked this newspaper and I did my very best to fold it up carefully and pass it along . . .

I confess to being a news junkie. I watched Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, Howard K Smith and I have a special esteem for the guys they called "Murrow's Boys" because they learned broadcasting working with Edward R. Murrow in London during World War II. I guess that Andy Rooney is the last of that generation still on the air.

Harold Dow was a favorite of mine on CBS. He was there for over 20 years and he handled the serious stuff. Here is a paragraph lifted from the CBS site:

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Dow's reports have garnered him numerous awards. He has been honored with a George Foster Peabody Award for his "48 Hours" report on runaways and a Robert F. Kennedy Award for a report on public housing. He has received five Emmy Awards, including one for a story on the American troops' movement into Bosnia (1996) and one for "distinguished reporting" for his coverage of the Pan Am Flight 103 disaster (1989). He won an RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award, an Operation Push Excellence in Journalism Award and, for a "48 Hours" profile of Patti LaBelle. He also was recently recognized by the National Association of Black Journalists for his report about Medgar Evers, which was featured in the CBS News special "Change and Challenge: The Inauguration of Barack Obama.

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You see, substance has been cheapened by fluff. Fame is gifted to the moth who seeks the light.

I will truly miss Harold Dow.

Harold Dow did not do Kardashians . . .