I loved your Judge Thomas cartoon and Devine’s genealogy of the bed George Washington didn’t sleep in. (Reminded me of the story of the jade bowl in an Antiques Road Show commercial.)

But, I’m writing about obituaries. I scan obits about men to see if they were in military service. (Perhaps I’m sexist for not also scanning female obits for the same info?)

Some newspapers even put an American flag at the end of any who did. But some obits go into unnecessary detail. You don’t need to say he got a Good Conduct or an American Defense medal; every enlisted man who served during certain periods, and didn’t get in trouble, got those. (Officers don’t get the GCM because Congress already declared them all “An officer and a gentleman.”)

And why bother to always include the phrase, “met the love of his life,” if he was only married once. Could he have married her for some other reason? Or if remarried as a widower, was the replacement wife also the love of his life? How about “met Mary Jones at a frog jumping contest and married her on Feb. 30, 1910”?

I’ll have to check my self-written obit. Does anyone really need to know the where, when, why and with whom of the two times I accidentally tipped over a canoe in my life?

 

Harvey Versteeg

Augusta

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