Obituary blues

I've got the obituary blues, baby, but I feel all right tonight.

Oh, I've got the obituary blues...

That's a messed up situation. Every day I read the obits. Every day I get the blues.

Used to know an old guy, Wallace Nodwell, read the obits first thing when he picked up the paper. Used to joke that he wanted to see if his name was there.

Then one day it was.

Now I'm an oldish guy. I read the obits religiously just to see how many of the dearly departed are younger than me. It's about fifty-fifty.

Half the dearly departed are younger than me.

And there seems to be a complete absence of rhyme or reason. Some really decent people die young. Some vile shitheads die young too. Other decent people and vile shitheads live to a grand old age.

There are a lot of anomalies in the obit section of your local paper, especially if you know the folks involved.

The guy who manages the local fitness club and has run the Boston Marathon twelve times will drop dead at fifty-two.

Then you'll read about the guy who was in the Waffen SS, started the local chapter of the Bandidos on his release from Nuremburg, was implicated in the largest cocaine seizure in history, was aquitted on sex-slavery charges by a hung jury, aquitted on jury-tampering charges because half the jurors went AWOL, and may he rest in peace he just passed away in a nursing home in Tampa at age 104.

It's a fucked up business, this aging.