One of the first things I do in the morning is read the obituaries. I was born in 1932 and I’ve learned to be born around that time (and certainly before that) is very dangerous. I read an obit this morning that said Joe Fundike had lived a long and rich life. He loved fishing and bowling and loved to read to his great grandchildren. He was born in 1940. Joe died after a sudden illness. He probably had a coronary.

To cheer myself up I read the obit of Martha Crunch who lived until she was one-hundred-two. She plowed seven acres the day before she tripped on a hay rake and broke her neck. Now, that is more like it.

I’ve observed over the years that the older you are, the more costly it is to buy life insurance. The folks that decide this are called actuaries. They collect data, put it into tables, and give chart talks at insurance company executive meetings. For example, they know the death rate in Sierra Leone is 28.1 but only 2.1 in the United Arab Emirates. Anyone living in Sierra Leone should get on his camel and move to the Emirates. Death rates are per 100,000 people each year. Does that make you feel any better?

Actuaries also know that some occupations are more dangerous than others. Insurance companies prefer to have accountants for clients rather than test pilots employed at the naval air station at China Lake, California. Test pilots probably are rated lower than your local firemen and policemen even if you live in New York City.

Now being retired is pretty safe except for old people who drive in heavy traffic in the rain, all the while jabbering on their cell phone. Old folks also fall from ladders while cleaning the leaves out of the storm gutters. And some times they are looking up at the birds instead of up the street at the bus as happened to my eighty-five-year-old friend, Joe, in Florida.

My grandfather at age ninety-five use to look up at the seagulls in front of my aunt's cafe at the Ogden, Utah railroad yards. He sometimes was standing in the middle of the tracks. The trainmen were use to him and would stop their switching locomotives until he was finished looking at the gulls.

So maybe being old and retired can be dangerous. My wife fell a few weeks ago and broke one tooth and cracked several others. She also had a horrible black eye. And she fell on the carpet from a sitting position. I told everybody at church it was my right cross.

So do you have insurance for that scenario, falling dead after plowing the field?

A popular television hosts says we can get one unit of insurance for about ten bucks per month. What he doesn’t tell us is that a unit is only $600, not the usual $1000 for most of the insurance industry. Very cleverly designed to fool us old folks on the way to the podiatrist.

Well, we old folks need a good laugh.

Fly Old Glory!