Survived By

A 91 year-old man passed away on Thursday and is survived by his wife of 67 years, a daughter and a granddaughter. "Survived by..." Even at an advanced age, men are still survived by their spouses.

This is not news. The comedian Alan King developed an entire routine of reading snippets of obituaries and getting to the part where the old guy was still survived by his wife. And not some chippy he might have wed in Las Vegas when he was newly widowed. He was never widowed, his wife of umpteen years was at his side when he passed on.

The tendency has been that men marry slightly younger women. So, on their demise, their is a widow who is close to their age. And assuming an advanced aged man and a long marriage, there is now a widow who is also long in the tooth who has had her partner of many, many years taken from them.

The Alan King routine was a comedy classic about the sequence of the demise of the people in the couple. Men first, no matter how old the women get to be, the guy goes first.

The 91 year-old man who passed away on Thursday was Mike Connors, an American actor of Armenian descent who became famous for his role as a detective in the long-running series 'Mannix,' during the late 60s and 70s. It ran for eight seasons.

I have to admit I didn't watch 'Mannix.' Reading the obituary I realized the years of the series coincided with my first years of long-term continuous employment, New York Ranger games, vast quantities of consumed beer and trying to beat my friend at straight pool. (It never happened.)  If I ever was home when the show was on I wasn't aware of it, and certainly couldn't find a way to care less.

The Mike Connors NYT obituary has a bit of a distinction in that the subject is past 90 and Robert McFadden is not on the byline. This tells me that Mr. Connors's obituary didn't rise up from the pre-written pile, but came about on the spot when news of the demise reached someone's desk. Eric Grode is not a usual byliner for obituaries.

But nothing is lost. We learn significant tidbits about Mr. Connors's life, particularly his part in raising awareness about Turkish genocide of Armenians during WW I. And, as a fan of the journalistic form, I also get to try and remember where was I when everyone else seemed to be making 'Mannix' a No. 1 show.

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