Thomas never got to put these pieces into book form. He died,but a fan of his work decided that his work should live on . . . and I'm glad this was the case . .. Thomas had the gift of being able to find something worth writing about--regardless of the subject. . . my only regret is that all obituaries in loca papers aren't as interesting . .. but as long asI don't come across mine, I won't complain!
There were several memorable passages; amongthem:[in an obituary about Francine Katzenbogen] Her neighbors werenot amused that sheplanned to house 20 cats in a converted two-story garage she had refurbished at a cost of$100,000. The luxurious cat complex included tile floors, climbing towers, scratching posts,skylights and cozy, low-lying window ledgeswhere the cats could stretch out and watch the worldoutsidetheir air-conditioned lair.
Not content to recognize a Brooklyn accent, Mr. Bergerdrewon his broader knowledge of American speech and history todevelop a theory of just howthe signature "Toidy-told Street"evolved. It was, he theorized, a result of the closecommercialconnections with the pre-Civil War South in which upper-classsouthern speech,primarily from New Orleans and Charleston,SC, was imported and hammered down to alower-classBrooklyneese.
A man given to gross exaggeration when simple embellishment wouldsuffice, Mr. McCartney also claimed to have visited every
state except Hawaii: His goats couldn'tswim that far, he explained, and if they could, they'd just end up eating the grass skirts offthe hula dancers anyway.
Like the subjects of the obits, this is all subtle. These are not obits of famouspeople, most had brushes with greatness like the skit on the Letterman show. They lucked into aninvention or found a famous golf ball or became a whiz at duckpins. My only regret is that thereweren't more of them. 93 McGs would have had a better ring to it. The book ends with the obituaryof Thomas himself, who died in 2000 at the age of 60. It is unfortunate that the editor didn'tinclude all of the obituaries mentioned in his obituary, since it would be natural that you want togo back and look at them after they were mentioned. But picking 52 out of a collection of nearly700 is a tough task and Calhoun had to draw the line somewhere. and that is a minor quibble. I foundmyself reading them all out loud to my wife and daughter, who enjoyed them every bit as much as Idid.