I was looking through an address book I'd used until I was 25, and began to realise that amongst my friends (as opposed to colleagues or relatives) listed there, circa 50 per cent are now dead. Death has been from a variety of causes: e.g. terrorist bomb, suicide, alcoholism, cancer, hypothermia (i.e. it's not that we are all part of a disease cohort). Things aren't all that much better for my friends who survived - half of them have, or have had, very serious illnesses or similar, such as kidney disease, suicide attempts, severe sight loss, etc. Friends made after 25 seem to be all okay (I'm now aged 42). Has anyone else had such a deadly effect on their friends?
Not yet. I'm 28 and only one of my friends (whom I lost touch with after high school) has died from medical complications stemming from a condition he had since birth. Damn, you should write a book or something. Kind of eerie.
Carlo, what is truly creepy is that I *did* write a book when I was a student. In the way of 99.999999 per cent of adolescent fiction it was awful, but one of the central plots was a character (partly based on a friend of mine) killing himself. Just guess what said friend did ... Luckily, he never saw what I wrote or I'd be wracked with guilt that I'd put ideas into his head.
Hmmmm did you know these people from Barrow-In -Furness, Andrew????Actually my moving to the UK from San Francisco 'lost' many friends. San Francisco tends to have a very transient population. How about this as a weird strange death. I had a friend who was the 'Buck' in the Band 'Buck Naked and the bare bottom boys' On stage he played his guitar dressed only in a Cowboy Hat & Boots and a plunger over his privates. Actually got a prettty good cult following and even made a record. He had a large dog which he walked in Golden Gate Park. There was a looney who spent his days feeding the pigeons (rats with wings) in the park.....literally he was covered in pigeon shit. One day bucks dog started barking at the pigeons and the Pigeon Man started kicking the dog. When Buck went to the dogs rescue, the pigeon man pulled a gun and killed him. Papers had a field day (can you imagine the headline in the Sun if they got a hold of it?). It would be really funny if Buck wasn't one of the nicest persons on earth. I am sure he had a laugh about it in the afterlife.
Grant - some but not all came from Barrow. Others were from my college and postgraduate days. If they were all native Barrovians, perhaps it would be explicable, since I can understand Barrow producing a death wish in anyone.
Andrew I will be turning 41 next month so we are both about the same age. I think in your 20s you have a certain sense of immortality that you learn very quickly is a false sense of security...many learn this by their own death. I took chances in my 20s that today I would never take.... but now we are getting to the age where natural causes (cancer, heart attacks) start kicking in. Never could understand the sucides, theres so many other ways to snuff it, why bother yourself? Knock on wood, this is getting morbid. But at least you can proudly say, "I survived Barrow-In -Furness"!!!!!or as I use to say, "The scum of Cumbria" Nice ring to it, ey? Ta Grant
There is a statistic that says that 1 in 4 men between the ages of 30 and 40 will die. It's a rather morbid statistic, but true nonetheless. Life insurance companies carry these and many other stats that are down right scary. Bill
Bill, with respect, that is either a *very* old statistic for industrialised countries (back when circa 10 per cent of children died before they were two) or is based on global data. If you want a chilling thought for the day, try this - on a *global* scale 50 per cent of people die before their fifth birthday. I can't recall the exact figures, but since life expectancy (i.e. the age at which half the cohort has died) for males in industrialised coutnries is circa 71-73 (it varies according to the individual country), losing a quarter in one decade seems very improbable.
My kidneys failed when I was 26. I got a transplant a year later. I'm now a happy healthy 31 year old...Do I know you? Tim
OK Ground rule #1, You do not 'know' a person from a HTF thread (safe from the markworthy death curse!) Just kidding, to my fellow member of the I survived B-I-F club. ( I would hate to see the average age of death for males in that place!) Cheers Grant
