Michigan's Long, Long History

Did you know that our state has been “in the making” for about two billion years? I learned that from a book by Dr. F. Clever Bald, a history professor who got a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He taught for many years in various schools here in our state, including teaching army, navy and marine trainees at the U. of M.

His book, though it is called “Michigan in Four Centuries,” actually starts out much, much earlier, when, “Elephants Walked in Michigan.” “If you had lived in Michigan eight or ten thousand years ago,” he says at the beginning of his book, “You would very likely have seen mammoths in the upland region.”

As he then explains, “The mammoth was a kind of elephant. It’s body was covered with long, coarse hair and the ivory tusks, and it was . . . . somewhat larger than today’s elephants.” In the lower part of the state, he went on to say, “You certainly would have seen mastodons, which looked much like mammoths and were more numerous.”

We might even have seen a whale or two, for they existed in various deep rivers here in our state and, like all of the animals mentioned above, can still be identified by their fossils.

Indians may have came to Michigan as early as several thousand years ago, certainly long before our first European arrived in about 1620. The Chippewa were mostly in the upper peninsula, the Ottawa in the upper parts of our lower peninsula, and the Potawatomi in the south from Lake Michigan to Detroit.

The Indians were practical, for when they killed animals, they used every part of them. The skin went for clothing and the meat for food. I even read that “front paws and tails were considered special delicacies.”

Dogs were also favorites for eating. Though they had a different concept from ours of how to treat dogs, Indians were nevertheless very loving and very religious. As Bald put it, “Spirits inhabited the bodies of men and animals, and they were also present in trees, rocks, and streams. There were spirits in the sun rain, thunder lightning, and wind.”

Bald even says that they believed the following: “A man’s health or sickness and his good or bad luck in hunting, fishing, planting, or war was dependent on the favors of spirits.” Apparently, though Indians were religious, they didn’t believe in a Hell. According to Bald, there was no punishment after death: “Every spirit went to the pleasant country in the West.”

Medicine Men in each tribe were expected to help Indians who felt they couldn’t obtain what they needed for themselves. As Bald puts it, “a medicine man was priest, sorcerer or physician, as the occasion demanded.”

This fascinating information about earliest Michigan and early Indians is all in the first 19 pages of Bald’s 500-page book about our state.

As he explains, though we only have fossils of the earliest animals, we have many roads which were originally Indian paths. We have a favorite vegetable, corn, which was first cultivated by Indians. We have a sport, lacrosse, which was originally an Indian game. We have canoes, and our bows and arrows were Indians’ invention for hunting.

Also, we have many Indian names such as Shiawassee, Escanaba, Mackinac and Ishpeming, and, of course, the very name of our state.

As Bald says in his preface, our state has had a long and colorful history. “Complacent Indians, restless Frenchmen, conservative Britons and ambitious Americans--all had a share in the beginnings of Michigan.”

Maya Angelou Knows Why the Caged Bird Sings.

The well-known black writer, Maya Angelou, spoke memorably about the problems she went through as a girl in her autobiography called “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” This book, which covered her first 17 years, was just the first of eight that Maya wrote about her life. This one is the most famous, however, and gives a great number of reasons that Maya’s life was never easy, even though she became famous as a speaker and writer.

When she was just three years old, for example, she and Bailey, her four-year-old brother, were sent away by their mother in California and had to take a train to Stamp, Arkansas to live with their grandmother. While they were riding on the train, the porter who was supposed to be in charge, abandoned them in Arizona. After that, the two had to travel the rest of the way with pieces of paper tacked on their bodies, listing their final destination and stating simply, “To Whom It Might Concern.”

Also, even when she was very young Maya constantly heard from others that she was ugly. She has kinky hair and dark skin, and she was always large for her age. 

Her grandmother, whom she called “Mooma,” had a food store in Stamp, and little Maya ate far too much free candy through her childhood. Eventually two of her teeth became downright rotten, and she was in great pain. Her grandmother bravely took her to the office of a local white dentist, one of many folks of both races for whom she had done favors during the difficult 30s.

After they sat for over an hour in the hot sun behind his office, the dentist finally came out and absolutely refused to deal with Maya’s problem. “My policy,” he insisted, “is that I’d rather stick my hand in a dog’s mouth than in a nigger’s.” (The paper left this sentence out!! I certainly didn't mean to show prejudice, but I do understand why they did that.) She and her mother therefore had to travel over 30 miles by bus to have her cared for by a black dentist.

When she was eight, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Freeman. He told her he would kill her brother if she told anyone what had happened. She eventually had to explain in a trial who had raped her, but he didn’t have a chance to kill her brother because he himself was killed very soon after the trial.

By the time she turned 16, Maya worried that with all of her other problems--and perhaps because she was still suffering from being raped--she just might be a lesbian. In order to prove to herself that this was not true, she indulged in sex with a young man, even though she didn’t really care for him. Although this happened only once, she found herself pregnant. She was able to finish high school by hiding her situation as long as possible, but then she had a baby boy whom she had to raise all alone.
True enough, I think Maya would agree that racial prejudice is not as obvious these days as it was in her childhood. 

But still, as Bill Cosby, the black American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist put it so well, “By the 1960s, many of us believed that the Civil Rights Movement could eliminate racism in America during our lifetime. But despite significant progress, racism remains.”

The Great Tolstoy

Always believe that you can make huge changes in your life if you truly want to. A marvelous example of one who did just that was Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian author.

Tolstoy was born of a wealthy family, but he was a difficult child. His teachers described him as "both unable and unwilling to learn,” and though he started going to a university, he quit and began running up heavy gambling debts.

He also joined the Russian army and traveled extensively. While he was in Paris he witnessed a public execution which had a profound influence upon him. As he put it,  "The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens.... Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere."

This experience certainly didn’t make him bitter, however. Instead, he became a much more serious person and eventually wrote a number of world-famous classics.

Also, by the time he was in his early 30s, he became a serious Christian who eventually had a strong influence on many leaders, including Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

At that same time he generously founded 13 schools for serf’s children and wrote a famous book about his faith called “The Kingdom of God Is Within You.”

He married Sonya, a high-class Russian woman, and they had 13 children. Though she must have been very busy, she nevertheless helped him by proof-reading and managing the finances of his two greatest books, “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina.”

Eventually, however, he left his wife because she was so critical of his very strong commitment to Christianity which eventually led him to give away his money and his material possessions.

He also became a vegetarian, claiming that “A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.”

When Tolstoy died of pneumonia in 1910, at the age of 82, he was extremely respected, and thousands of peasants lined the streets when his body was being taken to the cemetery.

In fact, his fellow writer, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, thought him the greatest of all living novelists. And Anton Chekhov, who was a personal friend of his, expressed a profound compliment: “When literature possesses a Tolstoy, it is easy and pleasant to be a writer; even when you know you have achieved nothing yourself and are still achieving nothing, this is not as terrible as it might otherwise be, because Tolstoy achieves for everyone.

What he does serves to justify all the hopes and aspirations invested in literature."

Later, other writers also had very positive comments. Virginia Woolf declared him the greatest of all novelists, and James Joyce noted that, "He is never dull, never stupid, never tired, never pedantic, never theatrical!"

I’ve been a lover of Tolstoy’s novels for many years and if you haven’t read any of his works, I would certainly recommend that you give him a try. His most approachable and touching novel for me is “Anna Karenina,” a tragic but fascinating story about a married woman’s affair. It also includes Tolstoy’s own views on religion, morality, and social rights, especially for women.

Finally, Tolstoy certainly didn’t brag about his brilliant mind. I love his remark in “War and Peace”: “We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”

Biographical Novels

How would you feel if someone wrote not a true biography but rather a partly fictitious novel about you? It seems to me you or your family might not be happy trying to explain to your readers what is supposed to be true about you and what is simply made up.

I must say I enjoyed reading a novel by Nancy Horan called “Loving Frank” about Frank Lloyd Wright and his mistress, Mamah (pronounced May-mah) Cheney. But the more I thought about it, the more strongly I felt that it really isn’t fair to mix private facts with fiction, especially about people who are no longer living and therefore can neither contribute to such a book--nor object to it if it doesn’t seem fair to them.

I realize, of course, that I’m not famous, and nobody is ever going to write either a biography or a novel about me, but it it still does concern me that writers seem to feel justified in creating such works.

The story in “Loving Frank” tells in great detail the way Cheney left her husband and two children back in 1909 for Wright, who was also married and had six children. She and Wright lived together in Europe for more than a year and seemed to love each other dearly. They probably would have married, but Catherine, Wright’s wife, would not allow a divorce.

True enough, while in Europe they both suffered from missing their children and friends at home. They also realized, however, that they would be condemned when they returned home because of rejecting their spouses and children.

Horan did a lot of research for the book, but she admits that there were “great gaps” in the story. She says, for example, that she made up all but one of the many letters but in the book.

Another somewhat similar book about Wright and marriage, was called “The Women: a Novel” and was written by T.C. Boyle in 2009, just two years after Horan wrote “Loving Frank.”  Boyle described Wright’s first wife, Catherine, and his lover, Mamah Cheney, who died just four years after they met. He then went on to tell about how Wright also married two other women after that.

His third wife was Maude Miriam Noel, whom he married in 1923, soon after his first wife finally gave him a divorce. Though Wright and Noel had traveled extensively together for some years before they married, he finally realized how much she loved morphine, and that caused their marriage to end within one year.

Finally, in 1928 he married his fourth wife, a Serbian dancer, Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, who remained his wife for 31 years, until his death.

It’s interesting that this combination of research and fiction in both books seems to be an increasingly popular approach these days. I realize that true biographies cannot possibly have complete, perfect information about human lives. And autobiographers may tend either to boastfulness or to excessive modesty, but I feel that they generally come closer to truth than biographical novels.

I would simply end by saying that if I’m interested enough in someone to read a biography and perhaps even write a column about that person, I would want to learn the truth as best I can about his or her life. If the book I read is a biographical novel, however, I don’t feel I can distinguish well between facts and fiction.

Healing Opressed Women

Have you ever heard of a hospital called HEAL Africa? I hadn’t until I read an inspiring book called “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide” by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn.This hospital is located in Goma, the biggest city in eastern DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo.)

Sad to say, it’s in the midst of an area where five million people have died over the past 18 years in what has been appropriately called “Africa’s World War.” And there’s been some Ebola cases there, as well.

Though both sexes are cared for in this hospital, most of their patients are female victims who have been sexually abused. While there, they are fortunate to receive not only physical care but also emotional healing.

In August 2009 US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the HEAL Africa hospital and said, “In Goma, I met doctors and advocates who work every day to repair broken bodies and spirits.” She said particularly of Lyn Lusi who founded the hospital, “She represents humanity at its best.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon went there in 2013 and was also extremely impressed, saying, “I was deeply moved by the stories and suffering that we heard. Many women and girls at this hospital suffer from fistula after enduring brutal rapes. In pain, they are disabled and often shunned by society. . . . I am humbled at their courage to overcome their wounds. I thank the dedicated doctors and nurses helping here and elsewhere.”

In 2002, a volcano erupted and the hospital burst into flames. Fortunately, with support from various donors, largely from America, it was rebuilt.

Also, though as of 2010 it had just 150 beds, there were sometimes as many as 250 patients there. There were 14 doctors but only two of them were gynecologists. Even electricity, water and bandages were hard to maintain, and there is still a lot of corruption in general in that area.

Harper McConnell, an American woman who went to work at the hospital also started a school there for children with orthopedic problems. Most of those children come from rural areas without decent schools at home.

In addition, she started what she calls a “skills-training program” for women who are there sometimes for months, teaching them such skills as sewing, reading, weaving baskets, making soap and baking bread. When those women can finally leave the hospital, they are given the raw materials they need to make an income for themselves and their families with their new abilities.

would like to “lift Harper up and make her their queen.”

And finally, McConnell set up a study-abroad program for Americans to study at a university in Goma. According to the authors of this book and also according to McConnell, there is no match for experience in another part of the world. As she puts it so well, “Time in HEAL Africa has turned people’s worldview upside down.”

The section of “Half the Sky” about HEAL Africa is only one of many reports of caring people all over the world who are working hard to improve the lives of women.

As Khaled Hosseini, author of “The Kite Runner” describes “Half the Sky,”  “This stirring book is at once a savage indictment of gender inequality in the developing world and an inspiring testament to these women’s courage, and their struggle for hope and recovery.”

“Half the Sky” is truly an inspiring book about many worthwhile causes, and I strongly recommend it to all.

When I no longer need my body

Woody Allen, who is almost 80, remarks about the end of life: “I don’t mind death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

Though he was joking, death really is something many would rather not think about. But it comes to all of us, and I think it’s sensible to consider what we want to have done with our remains.

A very old procedure was used by the Egyptians who used both cedarwood and sandalwood as embalming materials over 6,000 years ago.

Another way of disposing of a body, which is apparently still used today, is to dismember the body and feed it to vultures. This is what at least some Tibetans and Zoroastrians do, for they believe the body should have a useful purpose after death.

Then, of course, there is cremation. Surprisingly, even if one decides to be cremated, that person’s skeleton is still recognizable. The usual procedure then is that after a metal detector scoops up any metal parts such as fillings and hip and knee replacements, the remains are pulverized. Only after that procedure is the body given to the family.

Burial at sea is yet another possibility. This is too complicated a subject, however, for the present column, but you may want to read an informative article about it on Wikipedia.

A friend of mine told me she would like a “green burial” because it is the most natural way of being buried. As they say online, you can have a “biodegradable casket or shroud instead of a metal casket, natural cooling methods instead of embalming, avoiding the use of a concrete vault, and natural grounds-keeping methods like planting wildflowers instead of mowing.”

Not all cemeteries allow this more natural burial system these days, but if more people decide to be buried that way, perhaps it will become more available.

Here’s where a green burial seems to be the least complicated system, for the body is simply “recycled.” This means that it is quickly returned to the soil to give life to new organisms.

As my friend who advocated this method told me, “For some of us, it may be the closest we can come to reincarnation. The burial site would be natural. Trees or plants may be planted, or the land is left for Nature to take its course. Weeds to some may be bird food for others.”

The green burial is appealing in many ways, and I would choose this system except that I have already decided to give my body to the University of Michigan for medical students’ education. I’ve even said in my formal statement of permission that they don’t need to return any of my body after they have finished using it.

I do often remember that our family has space for eight more family members in the impressive Graceland Cemetery in Chicago, but if my body can help medical advances, that’s what I’d rather do with it.

And I don’t want a funeral with my body on display; I’d rather have a memorial service. Besides, I’ve never considered myself especially good looking, and I would hope that people would remember what I looked like without having to see my fancied-up dead body.

So, dear friends, check me out now, while you can! And if you also plan not to have your body displayed at your service, let me check you out now as well.

Beethoven - the Man and his Music

Ludwig van Beethoven was certainly a true genius, but he had a extremely complex and difficult personality. Amazingly, he also lost his hearing fairly early in his career. Both of these unfortunate factors made his life extremely difficult.

An excellent biography of Beethoven by Jeremy Siepmann describes him as having “a titanic personality, both vulnerable and belligerent, comic and tragic, and above all heroic.”

Beethoven loved several women but he never married, probably because of his various problems. He was a guy who apparently didn’t care a bit about his appearance, his residence or even his manners with most people.
He was especially hard on his nephew, Karl, for whom he was responsible after Beethoven’s brother died. In fact, at age 19 Karl made an unsuccessful attempt to kill himself. He actually shot himself in the head, saying he did it “Because my uncle tormented me too much, and I was weary of imprisonment.” Yet Beethoven had the highest possible goals, saying that he tried to model himself on both Socrates and Jesus Christ.

Beethoven had a truly serious outlook on life in general. For example, though he did compose one really fine opera, “Fidelio,” when asked if he would like to do more operas, he said “It must be something I can take up with sincerity and love. I could never compose operas like ‘Don Giovanni’ and ‘Figaro.’ They are too frivolous for me.”

Despite his criticizing the stories behind Mozart’s operas, Beethoven very much admired Mozart’s music in general and was certainly influenced by him. He may even have taken a couple of lessons from Mozart just before that poor fellow’s early death.

Sad to say, many of the works of Bach, Mozart and Schubert became known and loved only after their deaths. Beethoven’s many works, however, including nine symphonies, many piano solos, string quartets, piano quartets, songs and so forth, were well known and appreciated during his own lifetime.

It’s not surprising that many of the 19th century composers, including Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Wagner, Berlioz, Brahms and Liszt, truly admired Beethoven’s amazing ambition and talent. As Liszt put it, “For us musicians, Beethoven’s work is like the pillar of cloud and fire which guided the Israelites through the desert. ... His darkness and his light trace for us equally the path we have to follow.”

Richard Wagner was equally impressed: “The effect on me was indescribable. . . . I soon conceived an image of him in my mind as a sublime and unique supernatural being.”

Berlioz called Beethoven’s String Quartet, Opus 131 “a heavenly inspiration that took material shape.”

Brahms admired Beethoven’s symphonies so deeply that he felt extremely humbled by him. As a result he felt that his own attempt at composing his first symphony was not worth further work, and in fact he didn't complete it until he was in his 40s.

That first symphony reminded people of Beethoven’s Fifth, and the main theme of the final movement also resembled Beethoven’s Ninth enough that people laughed and hailed it as “Beethoven’s Tenth.”

Even two much later composers, Sir Michael Tippett (1905-1998) and Robert Simpson (1921-1997) claimed that Beethoven was “the principal shaping force on their own development.”

Finally, according to Beethoven’s biographer Siepmann, despite his difficult personality, Beethoven’s faith apparently stayed extremely strong throughout his whole life. Even as he was dying at age 56, he suddenly opened his eyes, looked upward and said, “I defy you all, powers of evil! Away! God is with me.”

SIGNIFICANT SILENCES

“A note of music gains significance from the silence on either side.”

 - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

For me both silence and repetition are truly essential in great music. Perhaps the musical composers who best understood both of these aspects were Bach, Beethoven and Schubert.

I especially appreciate a piece by Bach called Siciliano from Flute Sonata No 2 in E flat major. I’ve played it many times on my violin, and each time there is just the right length of silence frequently in the melody so that I have a moment to think back on how beautiful those few earlier measures were. I then look forward to the next theme. Beethoven was also skilled at creating just the right silences and repetitions. As Jeremy Siepmann, author of “Beethoven: His Life and Music” put it amusingly, “His silences often have the impact of hammer blows.”

Then there are pauses of optional length. For instance, I still remember back in my early days in the Battle Creek Symphony when we were working on Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. In that case, our conductor back then, William Stein, had to decide just how long we should wait in silence after playing GGGEb before going on to FFFD. He also thought hard about how long to wait after FFFD before repeating the first four notes and then going on to AbAbAbGEbEbEbC.

This kind of subtlety is tricky, for, as Stein said to us, he didn’t want to rush into the next part of the melody before people have fully taken in the first theme, but on the other hand he didn’t want to lose the powerful connection that exists between these two unforgettable beginning themes.

Then there is the opening of Beethoven's Third Symphony: just two chords, separated, once again, by silence. As Stein puts it, “Nobody had ever begun a symphony that way before.”

Another famous and beautiful example is Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” where the simple beginning theme, “CBCEDC” is repeated five times in six minutes and where there are pauses between every few measures. I recommend that you listen on YouTube to a performance of it by one of the world’s greatest singers, Maria Callas.

In order to be appreciated, however, both pauses and repetitions obviously have to be part of a melody. I disagree with people who actually praise John Cage’s “4 Minutes and 33 Seconds,” which he created back in 1952. There has been a performance, which you can see on YouTube, by a full symphony supposedly playing this work. They are really doing nothing at all, for the whole work is totally silent.

After that orchestra ends the work exactly 4 minutes and 33 seconds later, the audience amazingly claps loudly and stands up to congratulate the composer, Cage, the conductor and the symphony.

Apparently this work was debuted outdoors in Tanglewood so there were probably more interesting sounds there than in the symphony hall.

Even so, many music lovers did not like the work, and it affected Cage’s reputation negatively. As one man put it so well, It “Has to be the worst piece of music I have never heard.”

All of this business of silence and repetition may seem like an obvious aspect of music, but composers like Bach, Beethoven and Schubert knew instinctively how to use those techniques to create true masterpieces.

Good return of teaching investment

One of the most rewarding gifts of teaching is having a student from the past get back in touch with you simply to thank you for your positive influence upon his or her life.

When Barry Cannon called me out of the blue, after nearly 30 years, to express his appreciation, I could still picture him as a witty, fun, African American male I really enjoyed having in my classes.

He was one of six children in a low-income family from Alabama who had all moved to Detroit when he was only three years old. His loving father died on the day of his 8th grade graduation, but hard as it was, he still attended the ceremony.

He said he could easily have failed in high school and had many friends who did fail because they had what he called “negative activities associated with growing up in a poor urban environment.”

He entered high school in the fall of 1979 and described himself as “bright eyed and bushy tailed,” and he excelled academically as well as athletically.

When he came to Olivet College in 1983, however, he had a much harder time. As he put it, “I had no idea of the focus and dedication it would take to become a successful student beyond high school," and by the end of his first semester, he almost had to leave.

As he explained it, “I believe the freedom of being on my own for the first time overwhelmed me, leading to my becoming academically ineligible to play sports and on academic as well as behavior probation.”

Another issue was that he said he had a difficult time adjusting to coming from a mostly African American high school to a predominantly Caucasian college

But instead of giving up, Barry decided at the end of that semester to change his ways. He says he was inspired by two helpful quotes from his parents: “Failure to prepare, is preparing to fail,” and “You won’t rise to low expectations.”

Here’s the passage from him on his email that made me want to write this column. “It was during this low point that I met a wonderful instructor, Dr. Linda Jo Scott, who captured my attention in a way unlike any other. She had a charming and magnetic personality. I truly felt that she cared and wanted to see me succeed. She was always available for assistance, always had kind words of encouragement.”

The next seven semesters of his time at Olivet College were fruitful, however, and though he had to take twenty credit hours at one point to make up for the botched freshmen first semester, he was able to graduate with his classmates in May, 1987 with a major in Sociology and a minor in Physical Education.

Barry eventually received a Double Master’s Teaching Degree with a certification in English and Social Sciences and an Educational Specialists Degree in Educational Administration, and he now has 40 hours towards a Doctorate in Education.

I was proud to learn that he has been teaching English, which was my field, as well as serving as the Athletic Director at Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Detroit for 25 years--and with perfect attendance for all of those years.

It seems fitting to end this column with the words of my impressive student which he gave for an article about him by the Detroit Free Press: “I’m just a vessel. God uses me to impact children.”

Alan Alda's Full Life

“Funny people want to be in a pleasant frequency with you. It’s like you are both tuned into the same thing, like you’re dancing together. And through that funniness, the two of you can share a moment of pleasure together that you can’t get any other way.”

Alan Alda

Alan Alda is a remarkably witty, talented and likable fellow who has spent his life doing a series of memorable, worthwhile and enjoyable activities. He is now 78 but has certainly not retired--or even slowed down, it would seem.

According to Wikipedia, “He is currently a Visiting Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook School of Journalism and a member of the advisory board of The Center for Communicating Science and the Future of Life Institute. He serves on the board of the World Science Festival and is a judge for Math-O-Vision.”

I was first impressed and delighted with him in his role as “Hawkeye” (Benjamin Franklin) Pierce in the famous, 11-year, 256-episode series, M*A*S*H. I was teaching in South Korea back in 1975-6, and that story of the Korean War was one of the few programs on television there that was in the English language.

Alda not only acted in a major role in each episode of M*A*S*H during what became called the comedy years, 1972–1979, but for the last four years of the show, 1979-1983, known as the drama years, he served as producer and creative consultant as well. For a couple of episodes his brother Anthony, also an actor, and his father, Robert Alda, who starred in burlesque theatre shows, were guest actors.

As you no doubt already know, this was an immensely popular series. According to Wikipedia, “As of November 2011, the series finale, ‘Goodbye, Farewell and Amen,’ is still the most watched television broadcast in US History. It was on February 28, 1983, from 8:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m., and, at 11:03 pm, EST, New York City public works noted the highest water usage at one given time in the City's history. This was due to the fact that in the three minutes after the finale ended, approximately 77% of New York City flushed their toilets.”

Alda helped write plots for other programs and also wrote two memoirs, “Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: and Other Things I've Learned” and “Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself,” both of which I really enjoyed.

Alda has been married to a talented woman, Arlene for almost 60 years, and he has also been a promoter for feminist activists for many years, co-chairing the Equal Rights Amendment with Betty Ford. In 1976, The Boston Globe amusingly dubbed him "the quintessential Honorary Woman: a feminist icon.”

For me Alda is an outstanding example of someone who has extended his life indefinitely by being so active and so successful as an actor, as a producer, as a writer and as a warm, witty fellow we will all remember for many years.

Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein describe this kind of worthy, extended life in their amusing book, “Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between.” 

People like Alda, they say, “come up with a strategy for extending life indefinitely without actually adding any ‘clock time’ to our lifespan.”