The Left Bank

I don't know if I ever saw an obituary about a person that shows a picture, not of the deceased at any age, but rather what they left behind.

@Obitsman has Twittered the world about what turns out to be just such an obituary. It's an AP piece, appearing online in what looks like the Washington Post, about George Whitman, an American who lived in Paris and owned and operated a legendary bookstore on the Left Bank.

The picture of the bookstore is thoroughly charming, and the good news is that Mr. Whitman's daughter plans to keep it going. Good news indeed.

Anyone who lives to be 98 who was taken to China in 1925 at the age of 12 by his physics professor father on sabbatical probably really did snuggle with a beautiful Eskimo woman in Greenland for a period of time at some point. I don't know if Mr. Whitman was the last of the romantics, but his life does make you think there won't be many more like it.

It sounds like if he slowed down, he did it very gradually.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com/