Since I am 88 years old and counting, I do pay some attention to obituary columns in newspapers, marveling at the few who made to 100, feeling sad for those who are very young and furious about deaths in Iraq.
Two recent obits got a lot of notice. One was Kenneth Lay of Enron notoriety, a deservedly convicted criminal. Did he beat the rap? No way. Had his death occured prior to the jury's action, this question would be harder to answer.
The other one was Randy Walker, football coach at Northwestern University. Since I am a baseball nut and not much of a football fan, I had known virtually nothing about him when he and his wife Tammy sat next to me in the bsack row of a jet flying from Ft. Myers, Florida to Chicago just a few years ago.
Despite the frequent humiliations foisted on my dad's beloved University of Chicago Maroons by earlier Northwestern monsters, I became a Randy Walker fan after that trip. He shared some of his experiences with me and listened patiently to my one football debacle a a freshman at Williams College, when I nullified a big gain by failing to report my prsence to the referee (you don't have to do that anymore, he said). I was lucky to get to meet those good people.
That experience reminded me of a trip from Chicago to Ft. Myers maybe a dozen years ago on Midway Airlines. We were assigned front row seats next to a woman who turned out to be Mrs. Mike Ditka, whose husband was formerly a player and coach of the Chicao Bears. Midway used Mike in some of their adds, and he sat in the row behind us. "Don't you think it woulld be nice to let the Ditka's sit together?" asked a flight attendant. Yes, but we also thought it would be nice to have the Gottliebs sit together, we replied and held our ground. The Ditkas never complained and Mike helped get our luggage off the rack after landing. They seemed like good people, but I never become a Chicago Bears fan.
While I do not regard reading obituaries as a favorire pastime, they sometimes do jog a memory.
It heartens me to read your article. I am 73 and have just started blogging. I hope I am as cogent and intelligent when I hit my 89's. I love your answer to the airline stewardess. I would have had the same reaction.
All the best and I will visit you often.
Regards, Ginnie
Posted by: Ginnie | July 13, 2006 at 03:21 PM