Tragedy this day, 55 years ago. The brutal kind, to put it mildly. Instant cut-to-black at age 46. At least it was quick.

People who make it into their graying, neck-wattled, bent-over years experience a hundred or a thousand signals a day that say “things are slowing down, you’re becoming a bit more vulnerable, your gleaming years are behind you, it’s all downhill from here on, life can be dull and dispiriting, time for a nap,” etc. I sensed that resignation every time I visited my parents in their assisted living facility.

I guess I’m saying in a very narrow way that there might be a very slight upside in being spared all that, and in making a fast, decisive, sudden exit when the sky is blue and you’ve got a full head of hair and millions in the bank…wham.

You’re here and then you’re not here. Then you’re somewhere else…maybe.

That being said, all hail Kirk Douglas and Norman Lloyd! God, forgive me — I just used an exclamation point.