Dropping Like Flies

Members of the Greatest Generation, as Tom Brokaw labeled WW II vets and their spouses, are dropping like flies. My favorite tweak of the GG was after the blown 2000 presidential election. Many of them in Florida voted for Buchanan instead of Gore. Carl Hiassen wrote a column blaming the "so called" GG for blowing it. So they were doddering 13 years ago, and ANCIENT now. Tough year. My friend Norman's mother lead the sadness --passing away in 2012, early. Then my partner Paul's mother Lillian died in October, followed shortly afterwards by his brother in law Geoff's father. My mother died in April, and this am I got a text from my old friend Allison saying her father in law had died, too. I came to tell Wifey, and she was on the phone with her college buddy Eileen, here from Atlanta to put her father Jim into hospice. He stopped eating, and the hospice staff says he'll likely be gone by Monday. Jim's a great guy. He was a long time editor at the Herald, and had an illustrious career that got a major kick when he got the scoop on Al Capone's death on Star Island. As he told the tale -- all of the reporters keeping vigil ran to the mainland to make their calls, but Jim was friends with nightclub owner Lou Walters (whose daughter Barbara rose to fame in the news business, too). Lou let Jim use his phone, and Jim got the scoop. Jim wrote a book about his small town Lousiana childhood, as a lonely Southern Republican. Wifey and I went to his lecture about it when it came out, and I bought several copies. I gave it to Mom, thinking she'd enjoy the tales of her generation. But when I saw her next, she thrust the book back into my hands with a look of disgust. "David --he's a Republican!" she said, using the political party like she was saying "nazi." That was Mom -- if you weren't a Demopcrat, you might as well be a fascist... I never talked her into reading the rest of the book. Speaking of age---we're having dinner with Barry and Eric and Donna and Dana tonight --Barry's joining the 50 club next week. When we met, he was just 18; I was 20. My, how those years fly. So we plan to celebrate heartily. Barry picked a place in Lauderdale that's been there 25 years, and has great paella and sangria. I'll toast D2 --she's still in Valencia, Spain, the birthplace of paella --along with 2 of my brothers of other mothers. It's good to be here...