Rant #1,891: Dead Man's Curve

I read the newspaper each and every day.

I guess I am old fashioned, not getting my news from online sources, but to me, there is nothing like sitting down in the morning and reading my morning newspaper.

And as many people do, I read the paper somewhat in reverse, beginning with the sports section.

Heck, years ago, President Gerald Ford, an avid sportsman, admitted that even as our President, he read the sports section of the newspaper first.

If it was good enough for him, it is good enough for me.

And as I pore through the sports section first, the next section I look over is the Obituaries.

I have always been fascinated by this page, and while I don't always read all the obituaries on the page, I at least look it over on a daily basis to see the famous, the somewhat famous, and the everyday people who have left us.

The past few weeks have given us a good collection of obituaries. We have had the famous--Don Rickles--the somewhat famous--Erin Moran--and a whole slew of others memorialized in these pages.

Yesterday was a good example of "the whole slew of others" group.

Robert Pirsig, who wrote the philosophical classic, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," passed away at 88 years of age.

James Long, a jockey who won more than 300 races, left us at age 62.

Finally, neuroscientist Jack Panskepp, who helped reveal the emotional lives of animals, left this earth at age 73.

I am sure that for some people, those were momentous losses--sure, for their families, but I am sure for others too--but for me, personally, I took a glance at these three obits that were on the page and moved on to other news.

Nobody there really interested me enough to read their obits, but today is another day.

And no, I don't think that my interest in this page is some type of morbid curiosity.

Some people touch us in different ways, and these three people didn't touch me at all, so I moved on.

Sometimes, I do read an obit of somebody I have never heard of, because while glancing through their stories, something hits me, and I read on.

Yesterday, no one's story really touched me at all, so I left the page pretty quickly.

Today might just be a different story.

And I think that that is the thing about the obituary page.

Every day is a different story. People leave us that have made their marks on this planet, and some have interesting stories, others don't, and it is up to the person reading it to judge whether there is any interest or not.

No one lives forever, we are all destined to leave this earth, some sooner than others, and this section of the newspaper illustrates that fact each and every day.

It really isn't one of those things like "Who is going to die today?" but if they had any notoriety at all, made any mark on the world we live in, their lives, and their passings, will be chronicled on the Obituary page.

Who will be featured on that page today?

When I am done writing up this Rant, I will get my morning newspaper, read the sports section first, and then find out.