50 ways to leave your living

Sunday column

Death is the figure in trench coat and fedora at the end of the street, head down, thin coil of smoke. You cross the street looking straight ahead, you keep walking.

Death is capricious.  On the farm we rode loosely on the running boards of trucks and tractors, sometimes got bounced off, found our feet, got back on, no harm done. What could go wrong, we …