Letters
…getting pleasure from reading
the obituaries…
Dead Equal
Surely I sound morbid when I say that I have been getting
pleasure from reading the obituaries in each issue of
the Magazine.
For threescore years I have been reading
of the accomplishments of my classmates and those from
nearby classes in the “Alumni News” section.
It has made me feel a failure. In my career I wasn’t
made a chancellor, not even a dean or department head;
not a CEO, not even a CFO; never made it to assistant
or deputy cabinet secretary in Washington, not an adviser
to even one president; made no major scientific discoveries;
published no books; received no outstanding awards; and
so on. But a large fraction of my classmates seem to have
done so.
Now the years I was on campus are a
big section of the obituaries. Death alone makes us eligible
to be listed there. There are still some shown with really
major achievements, but on average they are much like
me: used the knowledge and the thinking ability gained
and honed at the University; led relatively normal, useful
lives rearing families and with reasonable achievements
recognized at a local level; contributed to society in
a way that didn’t make headlines in the major newspapers;
and so on.
I am enjoying it.
Eugene Pomerance, SB’42, MBA’47
Elmhurst, Illinois
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