My uncle had a great cookout yesterday.
Some Temps, some James Brown, some EW&F, some Smokey, some Stephanies Mills...
A LOT of good food.
Many of his long term friends were there. One mentioned that he enjoyed these types of things, more so to see people he hasn't seen in years. He said he thinks about his younger days more and wonders what happened to certain people. The cookout was a good way for him to find out.
That's deep.
Now I have a different understanding of why some people read the obits.
Ditto the comments on older people. Sometime in the age 50's group, most definitely when age 60 arrives, obits become an mportant source of news.
The curious thing about obits is that they tell you little more than the fact the person died, belonged to several organizations which weren't meaningful in his life, and the name of his wife which was already known. Balance of the obit is other trivia of no interest.
Obits in most cases follow a formula, more specifically a particular style sheet used by each newspaper. I know because Junior Junior newspaper journalist often get broken in writing them. I did. Boring as hell. But you do catch onto the matter of style sheets which is useful in covering certain beats. You fall back on it when there's nothing really of interest to report. Such style sheets of course tender to allow for more deviation from the "standard" (style sheet) used by a particular paper.
If you fail as an obit writer your hopes and aspirations of one day being an investigative reporter are soon squashed by your pink slip. All budding journalists in college need to work under the rigors of style sheets more. Knock those obits out in the right form and do so quickly....your chances of moving up usually come quickly.
This was in ancient times. Today they start fools out writing features, commentary, and reporting major news. That's unfortunate. Obits are of interest to friends and family and provide a good, on the job, training for freshly scrubbed and cap and gowned newbies to the profession. ;)
Posted by: Jerry at August 23, 2004 07:55 PM
Ed reading the obits is a direct correlation with age;sound like your Uncle is in my group,me and the old lady went to see the Ice Man (Jerry Butler)Sat. night last time we saw him was at the 20 grand(Detroit) 1966.smooth as ever.
Posted by: tootsie at August 23, 2004 07:12 AMtootsie