Dick Clark dies at 82

I can remember when I was little every year we would watch Dick Clark on New Year's Eve every year.  It was tradition in our house to watch him.  I can also remember watching the 100,000  pyramid with my Grandma and her always saying how handsome he was.  All I could think of was he is old, but whatever! 
After Dick Clark suffered a major stroke in 2004 people did not think that he would come back from it.  Even though his speech was slowed and slurred, he never allowed the symptoms of his stroke get the best of him.  The following is from the article.

"Some people felt that it was bad taste on the network's part to have him return in that condition. The network got a lot of criticism for that," said Robert J. Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. "People said, 'This is supposed to be a celebration for the new year, I don't want to see someone in that condition.'

"But I was really glad to see him do it," Thompson said of Clark, who had attended Syracuse and was a frequent guest speaker there. "Dick Clark announced to the world that people can have strokes and still continue to function."

In doing so, Clark became a symbol of hope to the millions of Americans currently struggling in the aftermath of what's known as cerebrovascular incident. Many of those stroke victims grapple with depression and become withdrawn because they feel self-conscious about the lingering side effects, experts said.

"We lost a champion and a voice for stroke," said Jim Baranski, chief executive of the National Stroke Assn., said Wednesday."

New Year's Eve will be a little different, now that the man that so many of us grew up with and watching the ball drop together is no longer with us.