In Memoriam

Anyone who is familiar with the NYT obits page will know of the paid notice section where, for a sizable expense, people can post photos and their own obituary text for a loved one. Some of these are quite lengthy, and I'm sure quite expensive. Newspapers certainly lost the gravy train when classified ads went online, but the obit page is helping to claw back some of that revenue. People want to tell you either about themselves (Facebook) or about departed loved ones (Legacy.com). And if you fork over enough moola, you can memorialize someone in the NYT.

I always make a habit of glancing over to the 'In Memoriam' section. I do this because for five years running I took out a sentiment for my murdered colleagues. At the ten year anniversary I did it again, and now, with this being the 15th year since 9/16/2002, I'll be doing another one. It is a bit costly, but something I've vowed to do as long as I can.

In today's paper there is one of the lengthiest postings in the 'In Memoriam' section I can remember. It is literally five and a half column inches long, and since cost is based on the space you take, it couldn't have been cheap to run.

The sentiment acknowledges the passing of Peter M. Cukor, who would not be much older than myself if he hadn't passed away on February 18, 2012. Thus, Andie and Xan are displaying a five year anniversary tribute for Mr. Cukor.

Other than the length, the text itself doesn't attract attention. It is the use of a P.S. and what it says that grabs you.

First off, you have to be of a certain age, of which I am, to even know what the hell a P.S. is. It stands for postscript, and denotes something that is written after the body of the text above. If it were in a play, it would be an aside. The P.S. goes:

You wouldn't believe who won the World Series! And you REALLY wouldn't believe who's president!

I love thinking you can tell the dead something. I love thinking about what would they think about an event that is occurring? I love believing they might already know, but just can't tell us they know.

When there was all the hub bub about the opening of the Second Avenue subway I wrote to the metropolitan transportation beat reporter, Emma G. Fitzsimmons, that since my father was born in 1915 in a cold-water flat on Second Avenue and 32rd Street, and there was an elevated Second Avenue line that rumbled past his windows when he was growing up, I was going to hold a seance and tell him they finally got around to replacing a mile and a half of the line as a subway, at a cost of $4 billion, but it only had three stops,72nd, 86th and 96th Streets. I know he wouldn't be impressed.

As I've posted here, the reporter called me and asked about my father, and was I really going to hold a seance. She suspected not, but wanted to be sure. I confirmed there would be no seance.

I'm going to keep glancing over at the 'In Memoriam' section and someday see that maybe someone will be telling someone about the Second Avenue subway. It really is some trifecta: Cubs, Trump and the Second Avenue subway, even as short as it is.

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