We may not be what we eat. Who we are and how old we are can be more accurately determined by what we read. In our home the alumni newsletter from a college we both attended says it all. Although the lead stories are different with each edition, each newsletter contains the same types of information on its pages — class news and listings for advanced degrees, marriages, births and deaths. Over the years and as we grew older, we turned first to whichever section had the highest name recognition. At present, that would be the deaths section. We shake our heads in dismay as our classmates’ names appear in the newsletter for the last time and 60-somethings with the faces of 19-year-olds fall off like so many fruit flies. Our inexplicable fascination with obituaries isn’t all that rare, and it does put us in good company. Noel Coward once remarked, "I read the Times and if my name is not in the obits I proceed to enjoy the day." The class notes in the newsletter are limited to grandiose accomplishments. Special attention is given to graduates doing such things as winning Nobel Prizes, being the first person to scale Mt. Kilimanjaro alone and without any type of climbing equipment, or discovering the long sought after cure for hangnails. Ten years without a speeding ticket, successfully quitting smoking or significant weight losses don’t seem to count in the class notes. The listings for advanced degrees include information about where the graduate work was completed and the captivating titles of dissertations and theses — "The Mating Habits of Canadian Geese – Monogamy or Monotony?" and, "Peacetime Uses of the Atom." After reading the titles you decide to hold off buying the publications and wait until the movies come out. The marriages column has changed over the years. What used to be a single listing for each graduate’s life now resembles the multiple listings for real estate. People live longer and older spouses either die or are replaced periodically with new and improved models. The births column is living proof that even though some classmates didn’t do particularly well in the academic world, they have excellent reproductive skills. Not to be minimized, those skills are important to immortality and the general scheme of things. The deaths column, a personal favorite, raises many questions. What did they die of? Was there any indication when they sat next to you in Geology 101 that they were sickly or bound to die before their time? Was their lifestyle any different from yours? What was their birth date? You vaguely recall dating some of the names and socializing with others. (In itself a remarkable feat, because you can’t always remember what you had for breakfast.) If some dearly departed shares the same birth date with you, right down to the same year, there’s the uncanny sense of losing a kindred spirit or some unknown twin, perhaps separated from you at birth. Playwright Neil Simon summed up many of our sentiments when he wrote, "The thought of death has now become a part of my life. I read the obituaries every day just for the satisfaction of not seeing my name there." How true.