I bought an interview outfit via the internet and it arrived yesterday. I tried it on for my honey. She asked, “what interview?”

“The one for my job.”

“You have to interview? Yeah, I guess you do, huh?”

She liked the outfit fine, pointing out that it would also work as a conference presentation outfit or for a funeral. Not that we have a funeral to go to but you never know, as Honey’s mother says. (Though usually she says that about stopping at skanky garage sales of the type that Sandra Tsing Loh describes as “Foxy Lady t-shirt flapping above a scabrous lawn” or something similar.)

Speaking of funerals, I just bought the new book about obituaries from Amazon. My dissertation director once lamented to me that he wouldn’t automatically get an obituary by virtue of his professorship at the IHE where I did my Ph.D. I had a hard time feeling sorry for him. He probably will get an obit. If not, it’s the price he pays for staying in the big city. If he lived in some little college town, his obit would get lots of column inches.

My mother taught me to be fond of obituaries. She lives in a smaller city than I do and therefore has more access to the little obituarites. She calls me a lot to ask if “such and such who died went to high school with you.” Makes me feel old. Still, I read the so-called “news obits” every day in the LA Times.

I’m reading this novel called A Brief History of the Dead which supposes that when you die you go this city which is a holding zone until everyone on earth who knew you dies too. I don’t really like the idea. I’ve taught too many big lecture classes.

Still, remembering the dead and the past has a sweetness to it that I like. My mother’s uncle Bert married but probably never “did it” as my grandmother said once. He taught piano in a little town in the southeast. Recently my mother was having her picture taken for some article she’s going to be in (I zoned out on the publication. Mother gets a lot of pub and I try to ignore it). The photographer was from the same little town that Uncle Bert lived in. Mother said something about the photographer being too young to know him. To which the man replied, “I’m 46 years old and Dr. F taught me piano for 5 years.”

Another mother and death story: she was in Canada giving a speech and she noticed that someone in the audience had collapsed. She stopped speaking and went over to see if she could help. The woman had no pulse and a doctor in the audience was giving CPR. When they got on the phone to 911, the doctor said “she appears to be in her mid-80s.” As soon as he said that the woman’s heart started again and she sat up and said, “I’m in my mid-60s.”

My family and I have a presidential death bet. I’ve lost. My mother and brother are neck and neck having gotten Nixon and Reagan in the right order. When I suggested we should have included the first ladies after Jackie Kennedy died, my mother allowed as how that wouldn’t have been funny. Whatever. I’ll be sad when Jimmy Carter dies. Still, I have a bet on his death order relative to the other guys.

Some friends and I were discussing the relative aliveness of the cast of What’s Happening. I knew that Shirley Hemphill had died and everyone agreed. No one but me thought Fred Berry (Rerun) was dead. For the record, he died in 2003.

My father’s mother would greet everyone she knew with “so who are your people?” She was also dedicated to the obituaries. She owned this book called Looking Backward Through My Knott Heritage. She was related to the Knotts of Knott’s Berry Farm thought she didn’t think much of them. Southerners who move to California are suspect. Fine with me, says Suspect Number 1.

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