Because of my own health scare and the fact that I've crossed the Rubicon of being in my 70s, I pay particular attention to those that pass away who are around my age. They're calling my class.
Yesterday's paper featured three obits, all for people around my age, or even younger. Peter Tytell, 74, the typewriter repair expert and documentation analyst has passed away. Over the years there were stories about the repair shop of his parents, then his, and of his work reviewing the authenticity of typed documents for lawyers and law enforcement.
I distinctly remember the kerfuffle around the authenticity of the purported Air National Guard letter that was said to grant George W. Bush special treatment in the early '70s at the time of the Vietnam war. Doubts about the letter's authenticity began when it was pointed out that a typed letter of the 1972 era could not have produced a superscript "th" after a numeral. A superscript would be say a "th" elevated like an exponent after a number.
No typewriter of the era was capable of such a format. Word processing programs like Word and WordPerfect could produce text like that, but they came along quite bit after 1972. The letter was a fake.
The controversy surrounding the letter was made prominent when CBS insisted a hole-through-a-pot that the letter clearly showed special treatment accorded to the man who was then president, George W. Bush. In particular, Dan Rather on the evening news would refer to the veracity of the letter often, even after it was pointed out that the use of a "th" rendered the letter a phony.
The role Mr. Tytell played in identifying the discrepancy is in the obit, along with the genesis of the story first getting aired in a "60 Minutes" segment on CBS. It is mentioned that CBS's review of the matter resulted in the firing of a producer and three executives for their role in perpetuating what would now be quickly called "fake news."
Unmentioned in the obit is the part Dan Rather played, and how it eventually led to his departure from the network evening news. He wouldn't let it go.
Of course the obit is about Mr. Tytell—whose name alone would seem to foretell his vocation—and not Mr. Rather, who is still with us at 88 years old. We'll just have to wait for the final words on his life.
Many crime stories, fiction and non-fiction, have a typewriter at their center, and how someone could, or could not have produced such a piece of text. Who typed the ransom letter is traced to who owned the unique machine whose keys would stick and mis-strike the ribbon, making a distinct impression on the page. Mr. Tytell was there to identify the machine that was used. Find the machine, find the perp.
I always thought how much the story would have changed had the ransom note left by the alleged kidnapper of Joan Benet Ramsey been typed out, rather than handwritten. Someone would have been nailed. and Mr. Tytell probably would have been called in.
Peter Tytell's father was equally famous for identifying which typewriter created certain documents and was also called as an expert to either certify or debunk a document. When his father Martin passed away at 94 in 2008, he too rated a tribute obit in the NYT.
Another obit in yesterday's paper was for Ben Cross, 72 an Oscar-winning best actor for his role in Chariots of Fire, the story of Harold Abrahams and the 1924 Paris Olympics. The 1981 film featured great music from the Greek composer Vangelis, and won the Oscar for best picture.
The photo accompanying Mr. Cross's obit accompanied the review I read in the NYT when the movie first came out. I remember the theater on Main Street in Flushing, the Prospect, that was still there in 1981 where I saw the movie, pre-cable, pre-VCR days.
Another obit a few days ago was for Niels Lauersen, 84, a Manhattan ob-gyn doctor who was convicted of defrauding insurance companies by portraying non-covered in-vitro fertilization, IVF treatments as another payable surgery, securing insurance payments when contractually there should shouldn't have been any payment. The fraud was massive and long-standing.
I knew a great deal of the backstory of this individual since in my prior life I worked for one of the insurance companies that was defrauded, and gave testimony at the two trials for the prosecution.
I became aware first hand of the influence someone can exert in the media to get a favorable story out there about themselves in the NYT and Time magazine, as Dr. Lauersen did before the trail. Constraints of the obituary naturally didn't allow for more of Dr. Lauersen's story to appear. And that's okay. Nothing can be served by revealing more than what made it into the obit.
In addition to the two Thursday obits for 74 and 72 year-old subjects, there is the one for Amer Fakhoury, 57, a detainee released from jail in Beirut. Someone quite younger than myself.
And the contemporary angle and even younger prevails today, Friday, when there are obits for Christine Jahnke, 57, a speech coach for women in politics, and Ann Syrdal, 74, a force behind female computer voice.
There are those who like to joke that when they open the paper and don't see their obituary they know they're still alive.
Who are they kidding? In all great likelihood when they leave us, no one is going to write about them anyway. And they won't even know about it.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment