Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Life List Day 211 - Read the Obituaries

For my book club, I'm reading the book "The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries" by Marilyn Johnson. It looks at obits of all kinds - from those of celebs, "ordinary Joe's" and even the new type of obit created as a result of 9/11 and the desire to honor so many deaths at once.

I realized I've never really sat down and read the obituaries, so today I did.

I went online and read some in the LA and NY Times. It was fascinating! I read about Pavarotti -who was the big name I recognize recently - but then also about Werner Von Trapp (one of the sons in the Von Trapp family that inspired The Sound of Music), a stunt cyclist, a minister known for her hip-hop Friday night service, a crossword puzzle writer, an American Indian who protested the use of Indian names for sports teams, a haiku poet who survived WWII internment camps...and even Robert E. Lee.

I can see how people get hooked on reading these. There's a bit of history, some trivia...and even a tear-jerker here and there.

3 comments:

Livingsword said...

This may seem rather morbid but it can also be very informative and interesting to walk thru a cemetery and observe the writings on grave markers, Germany for example has the most amazing cemeteries!

Mike Minzes said...

It's true that the dead sometimes tell the best stories.

Anonymous said...

Such a nice blog. I hope you will create another post like this.