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My friend Bob, with whom I've shared many a pleasant lunch, went outside to fill the bird-feeders and never returned. Was it heart attack, aneurysm, or stroke?  Bob had taken early retirement a few months ago to spend more time with his ladylove, from whom he had been forced to live apart by circumstances. His sudden collapse was untimely, but not more so than the death of Edward Peter, who had a bad reaction to a flu shot, or Rubin, who drowned while fishing, or JB, whose testicular cancer went to his lungs, or Phyl, whose stealth ovarian cancer finished her after nine dreadful months, or my brother Gene, dead thirty seconds from the onset of whatever it was that leveled him. It's all happening much too frequently and and much too fast. Nowadays, I read the obituaries first and I keep my one respectable suit, my funeral suit, cleaned and pressed. I do not like this trend among folks of my own years.