Reply #130: I remember feeling utterly horrified. Then "Dumbledore" died, too.

[calimary]

Richard Harris died right around then. It was just before the 2002 elections. I remember thinking - Wellstone and Dumbledore (the kindly wizard and headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the "Harry Potter" saga) - a VERY bad omen. Professor Dumbledore in the story was the only real security that the orphaned Harry Potter could count on, as he tried to steer clear of the evil wizard who was out to kill him. When Harris, the actor who played Dumbledore, died, in almost the same breath as Wellstone's plane crashed, it was REALLY devastating. I feared that Wellstone had been sort of "OUR Dumbledore," there to protect us from a republi-CON takeover by the Senate, and he'd been moving up in the polls just before the election. His senate seat had been targeted, and it had been a real tough battle before he began pulling ahead. And then his plane went down. And Dumbledore died. And I knew it was a bad omen, that the next week or two would NOT be good. I remember being very fearful for the election, even while Walter Mondale had stepped in. It was just a REALLY bad feeling. And no Dumbledore to protect us from the evil trying to take over. My fears were realized. It was an AWFUL time. And as we all saw, to our horror, we wound up, MOST certainly, UNPROTECTED from that evil. I'll never forget that. And right before Halloween, too. That was just ICKY.