Every two or three weeks I go through the obits of my old town.

I saw one of my best friends had passed recently. I about fell through the floor, his picture was one I'd taken about 1970.

I had to snoop, found his executor and Artie had specified my pic be used in his obit. That meant the world to me, I remember the day I took the pic very clearly.

We hadn't talked in too long, not a falling out, just kinda drifted in different directions and I'd thought recently about getting back in touch. Never got around to it.

He fell in the bathroom, hit his head on the tub. Not in the shower, maybe a bad knee or a dizzy spell. RIP Artie, we had some times over many decades.

I called an old friend I hadn't talked to in three or four years. He was happy to hear from me.

My first wife and I divorced well over fifty years ago. Mutual agreement, no hard feelings. She moved to the west coast, I'm in Florida.

We touched base a few times a year. When she did not respond to a birthday email, I googled her name along with the word "obituary" and sure enough, she was gone.

Every now and then I will search the Obits online to see if a certain person I knew was still alive and kicking .An old acquittance or co worker , etc. That's how I found out an old Supervisor of mine had passed . It really made my day . He was an evil old bastard .

One old friend called them "The Irish comics" - Yes - definitely.

I read them regularly - I like learning about people. Over the years, I've discovered some pretty interesting people that lived near me. One man was an SR-71 pilot, another was a Navy Seal.

I started reading the obituaries as a teenager. Over time I learned to appreciate what people had accomplished, their family background etc. somewhere along the way I started superimposing history over their timeline. What was happening in the world when they were in X period of their lives. Infant mortalities stirred sympathetic emotions. I stopped getting the daily news paper around the turn of the century. So I didn’t have exposure to obits as often as I but I still love to appreciate those who lived and passed.

Now when I can, I walk the rows in cemeteries and read headstones. The information isn’t as detailed, but I can still imagine their place in history. There’s also the occasional nugget of remarkable events that can be discovered by just observing and connecting headstones. Once I discovered rows and rows of infant graves with different family names. Some were siblings. Some were entire families. All with the same dates approximately. Turns out they were likely killed by the Spanish flu that swept the area at the time. Another grave was that of a woman. Unremarkable on the surface, but a descendant wrote it a guest book that the woman was killed by local Indians in the 1870s.

There’s an old cemetery behind our temporary house here in Tennessee. While walking the rows I found an infant grave. Next to it I found a newer adult grave. They both had similar first names as well as the same appellation. The infant lived only a few weeks. His twin brother lived 90+ years and was buried next to his brother near their parents. It didn’t say they were twins but it was there for anyone paying attention. Like I say, little remarkable nuggets of history to discover.

All from reading the obits as a teenager many decades ago.

Sometimes I do, but still amazed that they all die in alphabetical order.

I read them regularly and always wondered about the positives and no negatives. To read some of my co-workers, it sounded like they invented the internet when they did very little.

Another one took credit for other peoples work at two different companies plus cheated on his wife.

I've moved so many times that it wouldn't make any sense to. I also don't get the newspaper. I have searched several people's names in recent years who I could not get in contact to find their online obituary, so maybe that counts.

quote:

Originally posted by 41:
I read them regularly and always wondered about the positives and no negatives...

The last time I saw a friend of mine, back almost 50 years ago, he and his wife had been entertaining me and my wife with tales of orgies they had participated in while in the U.S. Army overseas.

When my wife left the room for a minute, my friend watched her leave and remarked on what a nice ass she had, then asked if we wanted to swap. His wife looked me up-and-down and said she was all for it, too. I declined, never told my wife about this incident, and never invited them back.

About 10 years ago I read his wife's obituary, which said she was "loved by all." I said to myself, "You got that right!"

Deleted

This message has been edited. Last edited by: selogic,

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:

quote:

Originally posted by newtoSig765:

quote:

Originally posted by 41:
I read them regularly and always wondered about the positives and no negatives...

The last time I saw a friend of mine, back almost 50 years ago, he and his wife had been entertaining me and my wife with tales of orgies they had participated in while in the U.S. Army overseas.

When my wife left the room for a minute, my friend watched her leave and remarked on what a nice ass she had, then asked if we wanted to swap. His wife looked me up-and-down and said she was all for it, too. I declined, never told my wife about this incident, and never invited them back.

About 10 years ago I read his wife's obituary, which said she was "loved by all." I said to myself, "You got that right!"

I had some neighbors that were into that . They thought nobody knew . Anyway , that marriage didn't last .

I subscribe to the Detroit News and left there 35 years ago and am in my early 70's so yes I do check.

60+ Years in the same hometown so yes, I scan them. Only read those with which I have a connection.