[Publib] Afterlife

[Backwage at aol.com]

Tonight a friend of mine called and with a rather odd  tone in her voice 
asked if she could come over for a visit.  I am not in the way of having 
visitors  interfere with my Saturday night entertainment, which this time of year 
consists  of the Dodger game on radio, a beer and a bowl of something 
crunchy.  But she sounded insistent and I told her  to come on by.   
I’m glad I did.  For in her  possession and soon to become mine, were two 
excellent books:  Eaton’s Birds of New York 1925  and Wild Flowers of New 
York 1921.  When I saw the two of these together, in  very good condition, I 
actually died. 
Yes, I am dead now.  I always wondered what it would be like to die, and 
now I know what this  entails. One sets aside beer and chips, puts on reading 
glasses and reads  something wonderful.  Apparently I  have been adjudged 
good enough to enter the realms of the angels, for these  books are the 
furniture of heaven.   
The Birds of New York is simply a collection of  plates—but that is like 
saying that the Louvre is a collection of  paintings.  These plates were done  
by the dean, the absolute master of bird painting, Louis Agassiz Fuertes.  
Compared to Fuertes, Audubon was a  dub.  Audubon could give you a duck  in 
a pine tree, but Fuertes never mismatched his bird and his habitat.   
Along with this I have in hand Wild Flowers of New York,  which would have 
been sufficient to effect my demise by itself.  How long does it take to 
wrap the mind  around such things?  In my case,  perhaps forever, but then, I’
ve got a long time since I’m dead.   
And now that I’m dead I’d like to make some apologies to some living folk  
whom I might have offended.  The  problem is there are so many of them and 
I have to spend all my time reviewing  these books—a blanket apology will 
have to suffice until and unless any of you  appear in the hereafter where I 
now reside and ask for amends.  Or a glance at either of these books,  which 
I will permit once I know you to be of good character. 
M. McGrorty
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