Thursday, May 27, 2010

AN END TO PREMORSE: Following up on TPE's post on the timely passing of Art Linkletter, this day before the extended Memorial Day weekend is perhaps most appropriate to answer conclusively the question of who is the most surprisingly alive person today?

And by "surprisingly alive," I don't mean folks like Courtney Love, Keith Richards or Andy Dick whose lifestyles would seem to stand in opposition to sustained living, but rather those people whom you've forgotten about and just assumed had passed away years ago. Like Ark Linkletter. Or, per this helpful resource, Dolores Hope, now a centenarian like her late husband Bob (and tomorrow, 101 years old), or former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir (94), whom I had just assumed had gone to the final peace conference in the sky at some point.

Even more intriguing -- and I don't know how to balance out this factor -- are folks who aren't quite as super-old, but I still assumed they were dead. Like Jake LaMotta, Esther Williams and Monty Hall -- all still alive at 88. Give us some more ideas.

From the archives: 9-29-06: "Whose obituary is, at present, the most stale? By which I mean -- the person's obituary was pre-written a long time ago; the subject remains alive; and there hasn't been anything new in the person's life for years which would require an update of the obituary," for which I still think the answer is Deanna Durbin.