Dead as a Hammer

I was watching an old movie this evening in which among many other notables, was featured Clark Gable.

And it occurred to me that every adult actor in that movie

… is now dead.

At the time old Clark was young, alive and well, thank you, and was looking forward to perhaps forty more years of life on the earth. And at that time, the vast majority of people who now inhabit the earth were still a “twinkle in their daddy’s eyes.”

Odd, the progression of generations. Strange, that we have been given the technology to literally see into the past; for that is truly what we were granted the power to do with the advent of film footage.

And of course, at this stage, we know the end from the beginning of every major actor in that movie. The elderly Clark Gable, for instance, died of a heart attack a few days after the completion of a western movie in which he co-starred with Marilyn Monroe. And as we journey backwards in time, as it were, we are aware at this juncture that Miss Monroe was under the opinion that Mr. Gable’s kisses were sprinkled with a liberal dose of bad breath!

Knowing what I know, (if I do enough research) about the eventual outcome of the hundreds I’ve seen “waltz” across “the silver screen,” the good, the bad, the ugly of their circumstances, decisions and behaviors, and whether and if they lived and died righteous and worthwhile lives, well, these two hour excursions on my figurative time machine bid me make my life count, while I still have a life with which to count.

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 15. Copyright Volumes 1-15.

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