‘Mike Jackson dead’ was the text message I got from my wife at about 5 p.m. this past Thursday.

I hoped it was an error. CNN merely reported ‘Michael Jackson hospitalized’ for the next half hour or so before Jackson’s passing was confirmed.

I’m not here to worship “St. Michael.” Let’s remember he wasn’t a saint, but let’s also remember her was the absolute best at what he did in the 1980s.

Jackson was reared in Indiana (Gary, to be precise), so we Hoosiers always kinda claimed him as one of our own

A few memories:

• A popular joke in the area where I grew up in the mid-1980s was “What do (stone-handed Cincinnati Reds left fielder) Dave Parker and Michael Jackson have in common? They both wear one glove for no apparent reason.”

• Jackson still having enough star power in the early 1990s that our whole basketball team bus would go silent when his “Black or White” came on the radio

• Me never being able to hear the song, “Bad,” from Jackson’s late-1980s album of the same name. Never could find it when it was released (FM radio was a rarity in the Wright household at the time). Missed it twice during a Jackson video retrospective Saturday on VH1.

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