The Obituaries
Do you read the obituaries? I do. The bulk of the obituaries placed in the Minneapolis Star and Tribune appear on Sunday, so I set aside some time to filter through them. First, I scan the pages, my eyes falling on the photographs, drawn especially to the notices displaying photographs of the deceased in their younger, then later years. I focus on the smiles, considering the moment when the picture captured the person enjoying their life, regardless of how trying, or difficult, or challenging it may had been at other times. I note the length of the obituary; in recent times, certain notices fill a column of newsprint. Next, I check the ages of the deceased, tsking at how the younger ones (in my frame of reference, anyone under 80) were taken too soon. Then I settle in to read, in alphabetical order as they are published. Some of the deceased, of course, were movers and shakers of the first magnitude. Their accomplishments are lauded in the obituary. ...