JACK'S BLOG
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Good ReadI WAS TOLD that a man with one foot embedded in a block of ice and the other in the furnace is, on average, comfortable. (Stop! Don't do it. That's not the challenge.) Then I studied statistics. Thank God, I learned better before I attempted to test that theory. The truth is that people, especially politicians and other shysters, love to use averages to sell something. In the final analysis, averages are nothing more than curiosities. Take, for example, the fact that the average lifespan of an American male is 78.6 years. Of course, by the time you attain that age, the average may have changed. I know. You don't have to remind me. There are random acts that result in violent death long before a person attains their full span of years. I've known many of those. Two close acquaintances have been murdered. Several died in Vietnam. A neighborhood girl drowned in the Chesapeake Bay when we were about ten or eleven. I've been lucky. I've survived boating and automobile accidents, Vietnam, and other assorted perils. I am now just shy of seventy. Does that mean that I have less than a decade to survive on the bright side of the grass? Probably not. Members of my family tend to live well into their eighties, some longer. Please ignore my mother. She died at age fifty-two. I remember well the mourners commenting how sad it was that she died so young. Young? She was fifty-two. That looked old to me until I passed fifty-two. It was cancer that took her. How random is that? Was it in her genetic coding or was it just a toss of the dice? In any event, I'm putting her early death aside as a statistical artifact and looking forward to another two decades. Maybe more. Doctors are working miracles these days, aren't they? Have I depressed you yet? Okay, let's get to the challenge. Are you prepared to defend yourself? Your right to continue living? I'm guessing that you are sitting alone in a room somewhere, planted in front of a computer. You're probably alone in the room. It's okay if someone else is there with you. Actually, that will make the challenge more interesting. A small aircraft carrying the pilot and three passengers has plummeted and crashed through the roof. Everyone on board is injured as are you and anyone with you. The Grim Reaper arrives and announces that he has a quota to fill. He must take three lives. It's immaterial to him as to which three he will reap. He gives each of you an opportunity to defend yourselves, to explain why your live is more worthy of continuing. What will you say? Quickly now. He's a busy reaper. Gary Kay envisioned this scenario in his novel, Don't Fear The Reaper. In Gary's tale a tourist-filled bus crashes on a Greek island and balances atop a cliff. The Grim Reaper arrives with a quota of just 16 to fill. Who will he take? Why does he choose one person over another? How will the potential survivors defend themselves? How will they react if the Reaper offers them a choice: their life or that of a loved one?
Don't Fear the Reaper is a good story well told. The manuscript is free of typos and grammatical errors. There are heroes to cheer and villains to jeer. The Grim Reaper himself, and his family, are a delightful crew of mystery and mayhem. Yes, I recommend this book highly.
2 Comments
11/19/2012 12:45:10 am
The grim reaper's on his way. We might as well get ready and hope he takes a wrong fork in the road.
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Jack Durish
11/19/2012 02:22:48 am
We all owe God a death. I just hope He isn't in a hurry to collect.
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