My Eulogy

I'm guessing eleven of you showed up today—twenty tops. That's okay. I wanted a small gathering. Why else would I schedule my memorial service for 7 a.m. on a Tuesday?

Some of you might have been saddened by the news of my demise. Others might be happy, ecstatic even. To you I say, "Why are you here?" People do strange things, as we know, like watching "Storage Wars" and attending memorial services for people they despised who never liked them either, just to keep up appearances. Please, if you're happy I'm dead, just go. No one will judge you, and if they do, who gives a crap?

As you may know, I was cremated. I guess it was painless, but you can't be sure until they fire up those burners. That smidgen of doubt makes most people get buried. The point is, I may have gone out screaming. I'm guessing I died on the job. I'm sure it was ridiculous. I was a mailman, and never watched where I was going. Maybe I slipped on the ice behind someone's hedges, knocked myself out and froze to death before they found me. Or tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and lurched into the path of a dump truck. Or, on one of my woodsy shortcuts, stumbled upon a family of deer—the city's crawling with them, only to be gored and stomped to death by the dad.

If you're sad I'm gone, don't be. I had a full, productive life, and contributed richly to the lives of others. I was a pillar of the community. God broke the mold when he made me. Wait. Can you smell that? Boy, clichés have a wicked stench in the afterlife, especially when they're not true.

The fact is, I performed many good deeds. I raised funds for three different organizations. But I must confess, I only did it so people would say what a great guy I was. You don't believe me? You shouldn't. I was a shameless liar my whole life.

I did portraits of friends as gifts. What a selfless artiste. Wrong. I did a portrait of Yitzahk Rabin that hangs in the offices of the local synagogue. I'm ashamed to admit that I probably did it for the praise, but it was arguably my best portrait. There I go, tooting my own horn again.

I loved to make people laugh and even did standup for a couple of years. Sharing laughter was a passion of mine. Wrong again. Truth is, my ego was the size of Schenectady. Yes, New York. What are you, slow?

I realize now that I only did good things to feel better about me. It's always been about me. Other people disgust me, including nearly everyone here. Not only are you all dead to me now, most of you were dead to me before I died.

If any of you are still sad that I kicked, you have the I.Q. of a bologna sandwich. Now go to the hospital and get a brain scan. Don't forget to tell everyone there, "Walt Wood is dead! Yay! What an jerk. So... why am I still talking about him?"

Did Mom leave yet? She showed up, right? Quick question, Mom. Long ago you told me it was better to masturbate than have sex out of wedlock. My question is, "How did you know that?"

I guess it's just you and me now, Pastor. Don't feel bad. At least you're getting paid. I have one final question for you. I'm troubled. I have a choice now between a) spending all eternity bored out of my skull in heaven or b) haunting my wife until she joins me in hell. I'm leaning toward the latter. Is that a sin?

Seriously though, I figure I'm either playing Twister with Sophia Loren or watching "Storage Wars" in IMAX. Heaven or Hell. Which is it? How should I know? I wrote this thing before I died. HELLO!!

Libyan Baseball

I love baseball. Not playing it of course. Much too dangerous. I love to watch it. It reminds me of Saturday afternoons in the '60s, Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek calling a game on the old black and white Westinghouse, Uncle Bernie (not our real uncle) spending an hour screaming at the players and umpires. Bernie had anger issues and blown ego boundaries, so it was a relief when the beer hit him and he fell asleep. We would all doze off then, and that's what I love best about baseball: The naps.

I was a lazy kid, so my father convinced me to play baseball the same way he got me to do anything: Against my will. He was in the Air Force and got sent to Libya in '62. That's where I learned to play the game. Libyan baseball is the same as American baseball, but without grass or rainouts. There was plenty of sand, which has a way of slowing down the game. Imagine playing baseball on the beach. A line drive would arrive at its normal speed, but we would dive out of the way in slow motion. We did everything in slo-mo. We jogged the base paths in slo-mo. We ran into each other in slo-mo. We shook sand out of our underwear in slo-mo.

I enjoyed the game for a while because I've always been a fan of slapstick. It's funny when other people get hurt, as long as they don't really get hurt. Then came the Billy Peterson incident. When a ball came near him, Billy actually ran toward it. He would throw his entire body in front of it. Very strange kid. On this occasion, a ball flew his way in center field, and instead of doing the logical thing—i.e. watch it drop, dig it out of the sand and throw it halfway to the guy standing behind second base, Billy tried to make a running catch. Big mistake. You see, desert plants are extremely stubborn. Extracting them from an entire baseball field by the roots is next to impossible. Maybe our dads loved us, but not that much. In short, Billy tripped on one of those pesky desert stumps—in slo-mo of course, and his timing was thrown. He caught the ball with his face and went down. Naturally, I started laughing. He didn't move. Not so funny. We watched them carry him off the field. At our next game they told us his dad got transferred back to the states. Until then, we thought Billy was dead. Maybe he was dead, and they lied, just to trick us into going back out there. They were so bored waiting around for a shooting war, they would do anything for cheap entertainment. Sadistic? You bet. But let's remember, without sadists we would have no masochists, and without masochists, no one to play baseball.

In '64 I get traded to Michigan, and I'm forced to play in the rain now. It takes quarter-sized hail for them to call off a game. The grass is nice, but grounders are as dangerous as line drives. I'm taking balls off the ankles and shins in addition to the line shots. The outfield was relaxing in Libya. Here, grounders never stop, and they expect me to chase them all the way to the fence.

Baseball is teaching me about the trade-offs in life. I play some first base, and the footing allows me to easily avoid the ball. However, I have to fall on a slab of concrete. That same ball would have hit me in Libya, but I would have fallen into a pillow of sand. This reminds me of the latest gag they've come up with: Sliding. Have you seen this? Please, unless I'm falling off my bike, don't expect me to slide on a sidewalk.

Fifty years later, we own a flat screen Hi-Def Samsung. I have to endure Joe Buck and Tim McCarver on Saturdays, but at least there are no lunatic uncles making me nervous. Sure, watching baseball brings back painful memories from my playing days, but there's always the payoff: the sandman calls, and it's time for another nap.