Jill D. Montgomery:

Do Only the Good Die Young?

I’m sure everyone has heard the old saying, "Only the good die young." I’m not sure how the saying got started, but it’s the TV media that has proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Whenever those glitzy reporters and fancy cameras swoop down on the neighbors after a tragic death, the comments all sound the same. "He was a pillar of the community," "She was the best church secretary we ever had," or "They were the friendliest couple, and they were always there for everyone. Why just last year they donated half their earnings to starving children in Africa."

Does dying in a spectacular way elevate you automatically to sainthood? Are we all secretly afraid of speaking ill of the dead without tossing a little salt over the left shoulder or knocking on wood? Or maybe garlic and a silver cross are more appropriate.

But what about the guy who never returned anything he borrowed? Shouldn’t the neighbor be saying, "Yeah, Joe was a good guy, but I can tell you one thing, the minute the family heads to the graveyard, I’m going right over there and get all my tools back, and maybe a few extras, just to make up for the ones he never returned over the last two years."

How about the woman who lived two doors down that was just a little too friendly? "Yolanda was a great old gal, and I know she worked in a soup kitchen every Monday, but you should have seen her make eyes at every Tom, Dick and Harry who walked by her house. I swear, if she made calf eyes at my husband just once more, I was going to blacken both of hers!"

What about the neighbor who was just plain a pain in the butt? Most neighborhoods have them. Do they just not die or do we just never get to hear those interviews aired on TV?

Maybe a quote about the world’s nastiest neighbor wouldn’t make for high ratings, but it would be a refreshing change. "He was so strange that we made our children cross the street just so they wouldn’t have to go past his lawn." Or, "I tell you what, I’ve noticed an alarming decrease in the pet population around here during the full moon and bats seem to hang out at his garage!" Or, "She was a miserable old crone that never had a good word to say about anyone and I have been waiting for this moment for years."

How come we never get to hear stories like that?

According to reports, everyone who dies in a newsworthy way, whether in the electric chair, a drunken driver’s crash or by Nature’s fury, was the next Nobel Peace Prize winner, and the world will be a sadder place now that they’re gone.

I guess that’s the most any of us can hope for. If I make the news by dying, please let everyone ramble on about how wonderful I was, and not mention the strange sides of me, like the one that wrote this column!

Jill D. Montgomery and family live in Braintree where all their neighbors are the best, most considerate people around.

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