When you scavenge for newspapers in the cafeteria at work, you’re not bound to get the best pickings. There’s always an abundance of sports sections lying around, but though I’ve tried, I just can’t get into reading them. The only games I might care about are the ones I watched on TV the night before (in this case, the Red Sox-Yankees game).

For me, reading about a game I already saw is like reading a math textbook. All I can do is think, “Why are you telling me these things I don’t need to know?” I saw David Ortiz hit a bloop single in the bottom of the 14th to win the game. I don’t need to read a newspaper article saying that David Ortiz hit a bloop single in the bottom of the bottom of the 14th to win the game.

So that leaves the obituaries. Well, sometimes maybe the business section, but I’m usually eating soup, and I can’t handle a spoon and focus on business at the same time.

The obits simultaneously attract and repel me. On one hand, I’ve never understood people who read them; it’s just depressing. On the other hand, it’s some of the most interesting stuff in the paper.

Maybe I’m morbid, but reading the obits is the only time I feel real emotion for the people in the news. The rest of the time it’s just “Peterson, a 34-year-old Hinckley native, said his neighbors rarely argued.” Yes but what about this Peterson fellow? I want to know more.

The people you learn a lot about in the newspaper tend to be famous. At least, famous enough to be in the newspaper. That’s the point, right? You never hear about Abraham Bindlebaum from Orono who got a master’s in short-wave radio operation and then went on to join the VFW and the Orono Yiddish society.

Until he’s dead. Then his whole life gets squished into three column-inches, paid for by his family at the rate of $5.80 per line. And suddenly Grandma Bindlebaum is a writer of sorts; maybe the most honest kind.

Or the least. Depends on what Abraham was like. Hard to say, not enough lineage.

I’ve heard people justify reading the obituaries by saying that the older you get, the more you start to recognize the names. People you went to high school with. Old neighbors who moved across town, etc.

But I think reading the obituaries is basically a way of thinking about death without having to, y’know, _think_ about death. Let’s face it, whether you’re young or old, you don’t like any reminders that you or someone you know might die. It gets so bad that a lot of people won’t even let themselves think about it. I’m not in a position to know (thank god), but how many people, even those who have good reason to, think _”maybe my parents will die”_?

Not many. And I don’t blame them. There’s no use, as far as I can see. Because the second you start thinking about it you inevitably start writing those first few lines.

At the same time, people feel a need to explore the possibility of death. To get used to it. To put a hand on its cold face and make out its features. Because they know it often comes unannounced.

So we peer into the deaths of other people. People we don’t know but can sympathize with, because they are just like us. Young people old people middle-aged people. Healthy people sick people good people bad people.

No one cries in the cafeteria. The pages of the sports section aren’t wet, and neither are the obituaries. But reading them, you can feel something in your chest, and you know you shouldn’t stare too long at the dates of a person the same age as your father. Just note the important facts, swallow a spoonful of soup, and move on.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 21st, 2004 at 6:18 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.