IMAGE:  February 2003 GRAPHIC:  University of Chicago Magazine
 
APRIL 2003
Volume 95, Issue 4
 
 
   
LINK:  Also in every issue
Editor's Notes  
Letters  
From the President  
Chicagophile  
 
LINK:  Features
Unexpected Expertise  
Poetic Justice  
Survival of the Richest
Food-Court Press  

Clouding the Issues

 

LINK:  Class Notes
Alumni News  
Alumni Works  
Deaths  

LINK:  Campus News
Chicago Journal  
University News  
Uchicago.edu e-bulletin  

LINK:  Research
Investigations  
Course Work  
Citations  
U of C Research Organizations  

GRAPHIC:  Also in every issue

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



The University of Chicago Magazine
welcomes letters on its contents or on topics related to the University. Letters for publication must be signed and may be edited. To ensure a range of views, we implore readers to keep correspondence to 500 words or less. Write:

Editor, University of Chicago Magazine,
5801 S. Ellis Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637

E-mail: uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu

 

 


Contact Advertising About the Magazine Alumni UChicago Archives
uchicago® ©2003 The University of Chicago® Magazine 5801 South Ellis Ave., Chicago, IL 60637
phone: 773/702-2163 fax: 773/702-0495 uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu