June - the cruelest month?
For me, it started with the passing of John Houghtaling, the inventor of the Magic Fingers vibrating bed, about three weeks ago. His death affected me. I spent my adolescence languishing on his wonderful invention. In the old days, when you stayed at a motel, there wasn’t much on TV!
With Houghtaling came the obituary deluge: David Carradine, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Billy Mays, Gale Storm. What a triumphant month for death! “It was more eventful than we would like,’’ says Adam Bernstein, the Washington Post’s chief obituary writer. “I OD’ed on pop culture last week.’’
Is it possible that more people die in June, I asked? “The rule of thumb used to be that more people died in January and February,’’ Bernstein says. “The notion was that they’d hang on through the holidays, like Thanksgiving and Christmas. But now it’s busy all year round.’’
Bernstein’s first instinct was right on the facts, if not on the merits, says Robert Anderson, chief of mortality statistics for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “In wintertime, the number of deaths tends to be higher, driven by flu patterns.’’ Anderson sent me a week-by-week mortality spreadsheet that seemed to show death, like the rest of us, taking a vacation at the end of the summer. “I wouldn’t say ‘vacation,’ ’’ Anderson says. “Death is obviously still on the job, but may be cutting back on his hours.’’
With Anderson on the phone, I couldn’t resist asking: Why are more Americans dying now, absolutely and relatively, than five years ago? June’s death abbondanza had plunged me into analyses of the so-called crude death rate, or deaths per thousand, which has been rising in the United States since 2004. It is also widely known that the United States has a higher death rate than Jamaica, Grenada, and - gasp - Albania.
How come?
“It’s true that that number has been inching up,’’ Anderson observes, “but that’s because we have an aging population.’’ Yes, we hear that all the time, but the oldest baby boomers just turned 62 - they can’t be dying very fast, can they? The point, Anderson explains, is a 62-year-old is far more likely to die, regardless of where they live, than a 25-year-old. Albania has a higher birth rate than the United States and a younger population, thus a lower death rate. On a positive note, Anderson says that “If you adjust for age composition in the United States, you will see that death rates have been declining in every age category.’’ So you might want to postpone that move to Tirana.
In preparing this column, I contacted the legendary Wall Street Journal obituarist Stephen Miller, who cheated death on Sept. 11 by scampering down a World Trade Center stairway. When I told Miller that I was hunting for expert commentary on the death rate, he replied: “Remains at 100 percent.’’
Symynkywicz is not the first padre to mine Springsteen’s work for religious meaning - see the Rev. Andrew Greeley’s essay, “The Catholic Imagination of Bruce Springsteen’’ - and doubtless he won’t be the last. All I can say is, any book that quotes former Globe Living/Arts columnist Renée Graham and one-man Department of Bigthink Joseph Campbell on the same page can’t be all bad!
Symynkywicz told me he tried to get a copy of “Gospel’’ into Springsteen’s hands, but he hasn’t heard from the Boss, yet. I knew he had written other books, e.g., “1989: The Year the World Changed,’’ so I asked what he was working on now.
“My wife and I have been talking for some time about writing a book about forgiveness,’’ Symynkywicz e-mailed me. “I would also love to do something about Albino Luciani, Pope John Paul I. Papa Luciani is a wonderful example of Christian humility and charity for people everywhere, and his death was a real tragedy. But I don’t know how much market there is for a pope who lasted 34 days!’’
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com. 