Don’t Fear the Reaper: 250 Anecdotes

This book contains 250 anecdotes, including these: • George Jessel was known as the Toastmaster of the United States because he spoke at so many dinners and gave so many elegies at funerals. He once observed a number of veterans at a dining room in a hotel. They had fought together, and some had been injured in battle, including a man who could no longer speak. At the table was an empty chair for one of their fellows who had been killed in battle. One by one they made a toast to their fallen comrade and drank. When it was his turn to make a toast, the veteran who could not speak stood up, raised a glass to the empty chair, then sat down, and all drank. Mr. Jessel says, "It was the most eloquent toast I've ever witnessed." • Syndicated columnist Connie Schultz, who lives in Ohio, remembers a group of children who attended a school near where she then lived. Each day after school they visited an orange cat named Tim-Tom. One day, Tim-Tom was not in his owners' driveway — he had died. His owners, Marianne and Paul Carey, saw the children looking for Tim-Tom, and so they posted his picture and obituary on a lamppost: "We would sadly like to let the neighborhood know that our dutiful Tim-Tom passed away on Sat. at age 18 years and 2 months. He is peacefully resting in our garden." The children wrote letters of condolence and left them under the lamppost. When Sam Kinison died, lots of comedians showed up at his funeral and talked about him. Richard Belzer emceed, and Pauly Shore talked about how Sam used to be his babysitter. Comedian (and Sam's best friend) Carl Labove had been with Sam when he died, and he spoke—but briefly, as he started to cry. Mr. Belzer helped him from the podium and led him to a chair, but suddenly Mr. Labove broke away from Mr. Belzer, ran back to the podium, and announced, "By the way, I'll be at Iggy's all week! Two shows Friday, three Saturday!" I'm sure that Sam would have loved it. Donald Ogden Stewart once told a harrowing story to a society lady about how his sloop had been capsized and he had to struggle for his life and was in danger of drowning near the Clews' house—at this point the society lady interrupted by asking, "How are the Clews?"