The Advance Lede

I've never taken a journalism class. And I suspect, if I took one that centered on writing obituaries I might be asked to write my own, hypothetical obituary.

Any attendance I might have had at a place of formal education ended sometime a few years before the first lunar landing. And I've never been disciplined enough to give myself the obituary assignment. However, unless you're too superstitious about writing about your own death, the assignment could be a juicy one. You could describe innumerable achievements. The world's a better place for your having spent living moments in it.

I read something in the WSJ recently that made me think of the self-penned obituary, or eulogy. In this past Friday's 'Personal Finance' section, John Koten relates the story of his father, who at AT&T may have been the one who was instrumental in giving us the # and the * symbols on touch-tone phones. Mr. Koten also expresses regret at what all children regret later in life when their parents are gone: no one talked enough about themselves, and no one asked enough questions.

Mr. Koten describes his dad as being an active, robust 84 when he passed away, and one who basically thought he was never going to die. Mr. Koten's sentence, "my dad certainly didn't see his own death coming and would be greatly  shocked to learn of it were he still alive," is one of the all-time great time-warp statements I've ever read. It's irresistible. If only the future revealed itself by going backwards.

Mr. Koten's appreciation of his father is a great piece. It hasn't moved me completely off the block of inertia that I sit on, and it certainly hasn't dampened my tongue-in-cheek attitude, but it has moved me enough to pen at least the outline of the lede to my own self-penned obituary. I have no doubt that someone else, if seriously asked, will come up with something different.

First name+last name, who always claimed that everything always reminded him of something else, and who would no doubt have told us what was going through his mind if only his death hadn't prevented it, passed away yesterday at nn after an intense, but short battle with a rare strain of toenail fungus, that untreated, somehow proved fatal.

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