Pushing the Envelope

Betty White with Alan Ludden

She missed the deadline.

In a prior posting, I theorized that notables were rushing to leave us before the end of 2021 in order to make the highlight reel for 2021. It seemed A1 below-the-fold was becoming obituary territory at the NYT as the year drew to a close

When Secretariat nailed down the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness in with track record performances in 1973 the horse-of-the-prior year was given to be a lead pipe cinch to win the Belmont three weeks from the Preakness, and be crowned the first Triple Crown winner since Citation in 1948.

Secretariat appeared on the covers of Time, Newsweek and Sports Illustrated before the Belmont.  Jesus. No pressure there.

So consider the advance hoopla accorded to Betty White who was set to be 100 on January 17, 2022. They were talking about the latest centenarian; she appeared on the cover of People magazine. She was everywhere as a model of living to be 100. Until she just didn't quite make 100.

Yesterday the NYT printed 72 facts that caught their attention in 2021. One was the demographic progression of the aging population: 

No. 25 - The United Nations  estimates that there were 95,000 centenarians in 1990 and more than $50,000 by 2015. By 2100. there will be 25 million.

But Betty didn't make it. And by passing away after the deadline for the December 31, 2021 edition of the NYT , she missed inclusion in William MacDonald's year-end wrap up of obituaries. She's fallen through the cracks. Because next year's wrap up will start with January 2022, and Betty made it to December 2021—but late.

Her long life is not made short by not making it to 100. Only those who are already 99 have a chance at 100. What can be said of her at 99 would have been said of her at 100. She did make the vaunted position in the NYT, A1, below-the-fold. 

I remember her from the 1960s game shows and her marriage to Alan Ludden, host of Password. She was pretty much always appearing on television, being given credit for a seven-decade long career. that put her in the Guinness Book of World Records. A twirl on Dancing With the Stars in her 90s nearly put her in the hospital though.

Unless I leaf through a copy of People magazine in a medical office (however, they've taken to not putting them out for fear of spreading Covid) and read that Betty White attributes her prolonged life to some mixture of substances, frame of mind, or environment, my guess is a long life is achieved by not dying young. 

Lee Kaufman, whose cleaning ads with her husband Morty when she was 91 for Swifter cleaning pads, whisked her and him to stardom has also passed away at 99.

Lee and her husband Morty were cast as a kvetching suburban cleaning couple by Swifter cleaning pads in 2013 and became overnight celebrities. They lived in Valley Stream, NY, and Lee told Newsday newspaper in an interview that her late-life fame held a lesson.

"The bottom line is, don't die young. There are too many things that can happen."

Betty White would surely agree, even though she didn't make it to 100 either.

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