I check them every morning in the print edition of the local daily newspaper to which I subscribe and which sporadically appears near though rarely on my front porch.
I'm referring to the obituaries.
I'm drawn to them and as I've aged have discovered how young so many of those in the obits are at the time they shuffle their mortal coil. I fully realize that a few short decades ago people the same age who died were I thought rather old. Strange how that works, eh?
We've all read obituaries of the rich and famous and you're not surprised to learn that those do not materialize from thin air but are the work of patient and talented folks who have devoted a great deal of time stretched out across the calendar to create an obituary that can be easily updated when/if the subject passes away.
It's an art within a craft unto itself I suppose but like so much else, artificial intelligence has been making inroads and is starting to shift the landscape of obit writing. Welcome to Finding Words where, in the parlance of my generation with a few keystrokes you can roll your own.
I found it to be disturbingly attractive, but your mileage may vary as do opinions. From the Small Solace Department, I'll offer this: no matter how well or poorly written your obituary is, you'll not be around to read it. So I'm thinking spelling and grammar are catch as catch can, right?
-bill kenny
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