Age-Old Questions

 I know we're not supposed to assume anything but this kind of note in an obit drives me crazy (aside from the weird present tense in the last sentence.) Do we really wonder why a 96-year-old has died? And no, I don't know where I'd draw the line on this question.

Kevin McCarthy was 96.
Cape Cod Hospital spokesman Dave Riley says McCarthy died Saturday morning. He won't reveal the cause of death.

The Old Days Remembered

Yes, well, I guess the only question was whether the editor was using his fingers or a plastic spoon:

Recalling a job interview at the Fort Worth Press when he was a college student, Shrake wrote years later, "It was a rackety, dirty city paper, with the teletypes clacking and a sense of urgency everywhere. A copy editor was eating tuna fish out of a can, and the bowling writer was drinking bourbon, and I thought, 'This is the world I want to be in.' "
From the obituary of Edwin "Bud" Shrake.