Saturday, November 24, 2018

A Game of Attrition

Talking with my "baby" sister this week (o.k. she is 3 years younger than me which makes her duh, let me do the math, 71 minus 3 is 68), we talked about one of my classmates that passed away this week.  She expressed the opinion that I had lost a lot of them (around 30 at last count out of 230 in class of '65).  I told her that she had probably lost nearly as many from her class of 1968.  She was not aware of very many but I assured her that actuary tables don't lie.  A day or so later she sent me a pretty long list, almost the same percentage from her smaller class.

The guy who died was not a good buddy, but he was a good guy and married to another classmate who I have known my whole life.  He had a lot of health issues going back 20 years including prostate, 2 strokes, 2 heart attacks according to another classmate.  He was in bad shape when I last saw him 10 years ago, so his passing did not come as a huge surprise.  That said, it has been gnawing at me.  I do know that we are all seving the same sentence here on earth, but with each loss it brings it closer to my thoughts.  RIP Keith.



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