The conversation turns to poetry and obituaries. The Irish have a preoccupation with death, a preoccupation that grows with them as they grow older. Ultimately, they look forward to having a good wake.
And on the way to that event they go to wakes. And sometimes to wakes for people they've never heard of, or ever met. They follow death notices like a baseball fan follows box scores. Ms. Johnson tells us Billy Collins's father, and no doubt others, have called obituaries the Irish sports page.
When my father in-law Patrick Brennan was waked in the Bronx in 1980 my wife and I were sitting in the funeral home one afternoon when an elderly couple came by to offer condolences. They were no one I certainly knew, and no one my wife knew.
They murmured to my wife that her father was a fine looking man. And to this day, she and I still agree he was the best looking corpse we've seen. Forty years later, no one has ever looked better.
The notice we placed in the Daily News gave his birthplace as Tubbercurry, County Sligo, Ireland. The elderly gentleman, or his wife, had no connection to the birthplace; they just wanted to pay their respects to a fellow Irishman.
They asked where the wife was, and my wife explained her mother was back in the apartment for the afternoon, and would be down for the evening session. They asked where she was from, fully expecting to hear that she too was from Ireland.
When my wife informed the elderly pair that she was English, and came from Liverpool, England, they nodded and fairly quickly left to go down the hall to the next viewing room. Apparently, this one had been a major disappointment, an Irishman married to a women from England.
The NYT sports page has been shrinking in narrative content for years now. Since scores are available from all kinds of sources, and instantly, the paper has taken to enlarging the photos they use—sometimes making them really big—and significantly shrinking the narrative text that would otherwise tell a story.
You really can't blame them. The Internet has been a very disruptive technology that has left the print media clinging to the side of a cliff by their fingernails. The Times however has been very adaptive and boasts an increasing online presence that adds greatly to the bottom line.
At the same time, the narrative devoted to obituaries has been increasing—greatly. There are now more front page obituaries than ever before, even if nearly none of them rise to the space above-the-fold. An obituary above-the-fold is like having your likeness carved onto Mount Rushmore, even if it is only for a day. You will however exist there forever in a digital version that will allow readers decades from now the ability to call up your life's story. (As long as the software works.)
Take Thursday's print edition. There were four pages devoted to sports, six bylined stories, with half a page of agate type results and standings.
Contrast this with the obituary section, which took up three pages with seven bylined "tribute" obituaries, with a third of a page devoted to the Paid Notices section, itself a larger presence than it ever was, now with photos and sometimes lengthy text written and paid for by family members and friends. And not cheaply, at that. The page is a revenue source.
It used to be I'd always head to the sports section first. Now it is obituaries. Sports takes me no time at all to read. Obituaries, much like short stories, take somewhat longer to digest.
The sports page has a story about the Kansas City Chiefs, one of the teams in the upcoming Super Bowl on Sunday; one more story about Kobe Bryant; Dusty Baker becoming the manager of the troubled Houston Astros; Major League Baseball's feud with the minor leagues; a left tackle's life, Eric Fisher, who plays for the Chiefs and a story on tennis, Dominic Thiem beating Rafael Nadal at the Australian Open.
The lead-off obit page contained obits for Sonnny Grosso, one of the real life NYPD French Connection detectives that broke the case. The other obit was for Bill Ray, a photographer, famous for many photos, one of which was the overhead shot, from behind, of Marilyn Monroe breathlessly singing Happy Birthday at JFK's 45th birthday party/fund raiser at Madison Square Garden in May 1962.
Marilyn Monroe from behind was a way more attractive sight than looking at a shrunken Babe Ruth at his 1948 Yankee Stadium tribute. Ruth is dying from cancer, and Marilyn is not, although she would commit suicide in August 1962, only months after the birthday bash.
Other bylined obits cover Arnold Aronson, a successful Saks Fifth Avenue executive; Rhona Wurtele, one half of Canada's 'Flying Twins,' a pair of national champion skiers; Lina Ben Mhenni, an activist blogger in Tunisia who died at 37, having started many good things in that country; Pete Stark, a Congressman who fought for health care issues and Harry Harrison, a popular morning DJ in NYC who called himself the 'Morning Mayor.' And was.
They're all good stories. I just happen to prefer the Irish Sports Page, and am happy it has grown so.
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