Monday September 07, 2009 at 9:32
“Yes, this summer only the Grim Reaper came through in the clutch. Yet in the end the Celebrities Crossing the Styx epidemic turned out to be quite unpleasant because it let slip the dogs of eulogy. When Michael Jackson died, we were informed, a part of us all died. A part of us also died when Walter Cronkite went to meet his maker, as a golden age of American journalism evaporated beneath the sands of time. When Farrah Fawcett bought the farm, yet another part of us receded into the ether as our emotional connection with an earlier, more innocent time was sundered. The real haymaker was when Teddy Kennedy breathed his last, for then and only then could one say that the misty, mythical splendor and impossible dreams of Camelot had disappeared from the planet for good. We would not look on the likes of Jackson and Kennedy and Cronkite and Fawcett again, we were reminded again and again by the people that get paid to say these things. The Republic would never be the same without them. Only Ed McMahon’s death failed to provoke such an outpouring of transcontinental anguish. In all likelihood, so it appeared, the Republic would survive McMahon’s passing. The Republic was bloodied, but the Republic was unbowed. For that which did not kill us only made us stronger.”
— Joe Queenan. He’s wrong about the summer in one respect, though: here in the upper Midwest we had the most consistently glorious weather I’ve ever experienced. A little too cool for our tomatoes, I grant you, but that’s a price I’m more than willing to pay for so many days reading in the back yard.
