I Still Love My Newspaper

You may know that I regularly read obituaries. In the Salt Lake Tribune, obit reading was much better. In addition to being more interesting, you'd quite frequently see someone you knew. A previous boss's mother (Mrs. Kirkham) recently died and I found out by reading the obits online.

My Washington Post does three types of obituaries. First, the regular kind done by regular people. Second, what they call a "news obituary;" where the person who died is someone not necessarily local, but famous. The third type is what they call "of note." I'm not really sure who gets to be "of note," so I won't be able to explain it. In these "of note" notices, they will list the person's name, followed by a short description of who they were. This description is generally what their career was. See the following picture for an example.

Some time ago, I saw one that made me pause. It said, "John Doe, Pip." I could not figure out what a PIP was. I kept reading to find out that this person had been a member of the band "Gladys Knight and the Pips." Ooooh, that kind of Pip. Riiiiiight.

But Friday's edition ran a news obit that caught my eye. I had to share. You just know that the obit editors were laughing hysterically as they titled this.