My friend Paul from Knoxville sent this to me today. Reading it makes
me see how shallow my life sometimes seems. Perhaps this feeling is compounded after reading a book by Mitch Albom, called The Five People You Meet
in Heaven.
The book’s premise: in order to understand your life and your place in the
world you have to live it, and then when you die, 5 random dead people from
your past explain it to you. Sounds a little strange, but its actually
a wonderful book. Anyway, this column kind of turned me up side down.
But who said we were always supposed to be comfortable throughout our lives?
Enough about me, here are first Paul’s words, and then finally, Ben Stein’s.
From Paul:
For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column for the online web site
called “Monday Night At Morton’s”. Now, Ben is terminating the column
to move on to other things in his life. Reading his final column to our
military is worth a few minutes of your time because it praises the most unselfish
among us; our military personnel, others who protect us daily and portrays a
valuable lesson learned in his life.
Ben Stein’s Last Column:
How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today’s
World?
As I begin to write this, I “slug” it, as we writers say, which means
I put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is
“eonlineFINAL,” and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing
this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved
writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.
It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the
world’s change have overtaken it.
Read the rest here: http://www.eonline.com/Gossip/Morton/Archive/2003/031220.html
