I Was Sorry To Hear About Their Troubles

I read a newspaper from front to back.

Except for one thing.

When should I read them – before or after I read the funny pages?

I’m referring to the obituaries.

Not all newspapers carry the funnies, which simplifies my decision.

The comics make me laugh, and laughter is the best medicine. I learned early on that laughter is good for the soul, unless I did it during Rocky Bergner’s general science class. Then laughter was a capital offense. It was a tightrope act deciding when to laugh at something a teacher said. I wanted to laugh at their jokes, but it was difficult to be certain when they were trying to be funny.

I spoke at a thing where an audience member came up after I’d concluded, shook my hand, and said, “You were hilarious. You meant to be, right?”

I felt like a teacher.

I’ve given many eulogies and I have learned that laughter and tears spend a lot of time together. A good life is one in which we laugh more than we cry.

You know you are growing up when you read the obituaries. You are all grown up when you take them seriously.

My parents were from Iowa. Once they moved to Minnesota, they continued to subscribe to the Algona newspaper. I enjoyed reading the paper, but I suspect my parents subscribed to monitor who was buying the farm, kicking the bucket, cashing in their chips, biting the dust, shuffling off this mortal coil, or joining the choir invisible in their old stomping grounds.

I read the obituaries regularly. It’s in my genes. Each obituary is a history book. Each death is like a library burning to the ground. Information, knowledge, stories and hopes have gone away.

You never know if the deceased believed in reincarnation unless he comes back and tells you, or if he has a takeout menu in his pocket as he lies in the casket.

I come from a long line of obituary readers.

When her grandkids became both rambunctious and raucous, Grandma turned her hearing aids off. We could tell because the whistling stopped. Grandma had selective hearing. She heard what she wanted to hear. And what she wanted to hear was not a lot of noise produced by her grandchildren.

  I remember a sweltering day in her small-town Iowa home, which was completely free of air conditioning. One youngster, who shall remain nameless, threw a temper tantrum, which might have been a temperature tantrum due to the heat. He wanted ice cream. Grandma quickly ran out of patience with “I want.” Kids always want things they don’t have because it makes no sense to ask for things they already have. Grandma thought too many possessions led to too much dusting. Whining got on her nerves. It wasn’t our fault. Grandma left her nerves lying all over the place. It was impossible not to get on them.

Grandma told us to sit down.

When Grandma told us to sit down, we sat down.

Grandma grabbed the Algona newspaper and read the obituaries aloud. She didn’t read the obituaries of young people. They were too sad. She had lost a child. She had plenty to read. Grandma’s crowd was dropping dead in droves. The deceased whose life stories she described were strangers to me. And they were ancient – some were well into their forties.

I remember thinking, “Does every grandmother read the obituaries to her grandkids?”

But the readings caused us to settle down.

It was difficult to concentrate on being a brat while someone was reading about the one who had passed away, and those who had either survived him or preceded him in death. Good behavior was the norm when hearing an obituary read while an ancient phonograph played Hank Williams singing, “No matter how I struggle and strive. I’ll never get out of this world alive,” in the background.

Grandma tossed in bits and pieces she knew about the decedents. She turned the obits into extended eulogies. She made them into stories.

That’s why I read the obituaries today.

They keep me from throwing tantrums.

Then I read the funny pages. Not every paper carries them, but I find them somewhere. 

I need the funnies.