Working on the obits page Friday night, I saw a bit of wording in one of the obituaries that I have seen before and that never ceases to strike me as just sort of odd.
The decedent in the obit in question was said to have died “unexpectedly.”
I get the point that the writer — probably a family member, or maybe a funeral home employee — was trying to make: That the person, in this case a fellow in his mid 70s, was in at least reasonably good health and that neither he nor none of his friends or relatives was expecting him to expire when he did.
But unless a person is a condemned criminal, in the final stages of a terminal illness, about to undertake a very high-risk mission of some kind, etc., does anyone actually expect to die in the hours leading up to it?
Or conversely, wake up anticipating not making it through the day and then surprisingly doing so?
On the other hand, nobody’s demise is ever wholly unexpected. I’m reminded of a spoof headline someone called to my attention once, funny but true: “World death rate holds steady at 100 percent.”
Anyway, “died unexpectedly” just doesn’t get it done for me.
And now, today’s baseball fix:
Catch of the Day, No. 3: Goldsmith-brand first baseman's mitt, circa 1940. This was part of a batch of vintage gloves that I got in a trade with OSU's PE department this spring; I swapped a bunch of newer gloves that could actually be used by softball students in exchange for a number of antiques that had been hanging around the university's PE inventory for decades. My daughter Pam, one of those students, tipped me off to the treasure trove of old leather.
