I hardly ever post regarding the death of a celebrity; I reason that sufficient other people will take care of the public fawning over the dear departed’s legacy. (And that, in any event, it bothers me that we seem to care more about the lives of famous people who we have no actual connection with than our actual neighbors.)
Today, I’ll make an exception.
Russell Baker, humor columnist, passed away on Monday at the age of 93. You can read the Washington Post’s write-up here.
Mr. Baker managed the nearly impossible task of being wryly funny in print, every week, for years and years. That’s not easy. I loved his dry sense of humor and his self-deprecation. I didn’t grow up reading his columns because our local newspaper, the Roanoke Times, carried Art Buchwald’s columns instead, but I discovered Baker once I ventured out into the world. His columns are worth looking up and reading.
But that’s not the main reason I’m posting here on the occasion of his death. I’m posting to honor the author of an essay so funny that it’s literally been hanging in my kitchen for decades: “Francs and Beans“. You may disagree, but I think it’s one of the funniest things ever written. And so I choose to honor its author by saying “Mr. Baker, thanks for the laughs. You made the world a better place by being in it.”
“You were immense.”