To Be Continued

I gasped just a bit, then recovered. When I first checked the NYT obituary page online I saw that William McDonald, who I know to be the editor of the obits page, had written about Robert D. McFadden, a long-time NYT reporter—rewrite man—and obituary writer. It would only be fitting that Bill would write McFadden's obit.

Maybe Bill has written McFadden's obit, but it will be an advance one, revealed to the world, well who knows when? When life is discovered in outer space? When the Jets finally win a Super Bowl other than the one they won in 1969? When congestion pricing is implemented in Midtown Manhattan? Everything is certain. It's only when.

No, Bill writes to us about McFadden's retirement on Sunday. After 63 years at the NYT and reaching the age of 87, McFadden can't take it anymore. We wish him well. Unless he does something really dramatic, he's not likely to outlive his money, like some of us. 

Anyone who has read what follows a McFadden byline knows they're in for a lede that can stretch on so grammatically correct that in that paragraph we learn nearly everything about the subject. If you want to speed read, just read a McFadden lede and stop right there. But why would you want to do that? The joy is reading all that follows, and it's always worth it.

Bill McDonald chooses a selection of the obit ledes for his valentine to McFadden. They are all worthy of mention, and the hope is that someone will collect a selection of McFadden obits and publish them in a hardcover book, like what was done for Robert McG. Thomas Jr. so many years ago, another of the  obit giants.

One obit I will never forget is the one McFadden wrote when John V. Lindsay passed away in 2000, at 79 from complications of Parkinson's. Lindsay was a two-term NYC mayor who served from 1965-1973, an era when I came of age while living in Flushing Queens, a borough—or outer borough of NYC as the NYT likes to sometimes to refer to Queens County—that famously escaped being plowed after a blizzard in 1969, an omission forever laid at Lindsay's feet.

McFadden's front page, above the fold obit, stopped my eyes in their tracks when I read the third paragraph: "At times he had no pension or health insurance. The riches evoked by his patrician manner, turned out to be illusory, and he and his wife, Mary, for years lived in a one-bedroom apartment." Mayor Lindsay may have often been inept, but he wasn't personally larcenous.

The absolute good news that Bill McDonald tells us is that there are perhaps 250 advance obits in the pipeline with a McFadden byline that will only appear when the subject passes away. And since it is never revealed who the obits are about, or what the subjects' current ages are, we can only hope that the exhaustion of the supply will occur after the Jets win a Super Bowl.

Perhaps McFadden stayed so long at the Times because after coming to work for so many years in Manhattan he knew where the best places to eat were. And you don't want to waste that knowledge.

Red Smith once commented that after taking so many years to reach the press box at Yankee Stadium, it would be a shame to give that up.

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