Peter O'Toole was one of those guys you would have liked to have known. He was handsome, clever, talented, and drank too much. A man much like myself, I might say, if I were so immodest. Some day, the blogosphere will be reeling with the news that Wormstooth is dead. Don't cry, it's not happening any time soon, but it will happen. It's not healthy to dwell upon such things, and we are actually encouraged to never think about death. If you talk about it too much, people will start to look at you with ill-concealed concern. After all, why would you think about something that is at least as significant as your birth, and as inevitable as the coming and going of the tide?
I worked in a cemetery when I was young, and buried a few people. And, one time, many years later, I had to verify that someone who appeared to be dead, who was totally unresponsive, was indeed dead. Incredibly, it occurred to me to ask for a hand mirror, which I placed before the mouth and nose of the recently departed, to prove to his grieving widow that he was really gone. He was gone.
As you get older, you begin to realize that the finish line is a lot closer than you'd like it to be, but you also know that there's not much you can do about it, other than diet, exercise, dress too young for your age, dye your hair an unnatural color, and suck in your gut just before you look in a mirror that some day won't register any moisture from your lungs.
When I was a boy, my Uncle Howie's dog died. That night, it occurred to me that, some day, people I loved would die, and I cried myself to sleep.
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