Reading Obituaries

When reading newspapers I go through a specific sequence. Up to the age of thirty it was the sports page only. Since then it's letters to the editor followed by the national news section. After that it's on to the local news, weather and, recently, I've added obituaries.
People who read obits, I suspect, do it for the same reasons: (1) to find out if we know the recently departed; (2) to see how many are younger than us. It can be a bitter sweet experience. You feel sad for them and their family due to their youth. Still, it's a victory of sorts because we're still breathing. I recall a student of mine giving me a good natured verbal blast on my thirty-fourth and I irreverently responded; "Well, I beat Jesus, didn't I"? (3) some look for interesting obits. I read an obituary two years ago that took up the entire length of the page. The deceased had more experiences than Hugh Hefner. It was as though he had climbed Mt. Everest and written children's books.. Whoever wrote about him liked that person a lot. I hope they got over their grief.
I've also noticed that when pictures are included with the obit they are of two types. If the person who dies is over the age of eighty and they are men the picture is current unless he was in the Armed Forces. Then we get the uniform picture. If it's a woman over eighty somebody sticks in a picture of when she was twenty-five. It's easy to tell how old she was since the photo looks like it was taken just prior to her making a mad dash to a Benny Goodman concert.
Reading obits is directly proportional to one's age. My kids don't. I do it every day.
Obituaries also remind me of an early teaching experience and it took place in 1974 . Education was unusual in the 70's; seems we were inundated with weirdo curiculum. The English department in the new school I was hired to coach basketball and teach was offering scrabble, crossword puzzle and the most popular subject, comic book reading. Go figure! The History department was not far behind. Since I was the "newbie" I was assigned a new subject, Thanatology-the study of death and dying. Come to find out, I was the first high school instructor in the nation to do this. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross had published the first Death and Dying text so I borrowed greatly from her. It seemed students were crawling out of the woodwork to take my class. I thought my excellent teaching credentials had preceded me but then the truth was revealed. "New teacher-basketball coach-easy class-easy A".
In the final analysis the class turned out to be rather successful. We did the trips to the funeral home, studies of world traditions, visits to cemeteries and even a pet cemetery. How can I ever forget the grave stone that read: "Hear lies Fluffy-struck down by a truck".
One requirement was to have my students write their own obituary. It was a reality thing and I didn't expect much. At seventeen what can a person write; played Little League, ate an ice cream cone, kissed Mary Lou, went to the prom.
Obituaries are fun to read. Ben Franklin had a good one. Try it yourself and see if you do it honestly. It can be quite humbling.