The Dead

I recently went through my high school year book, the 1959 Jacket Journal, and matched the pictures to the obituary for that year  listed on the  Arlington Heights High School web site.  I came up with some interesting observations.  First, each page has 7 rows of pictures, with 8 pictures on each row.  Immediately below the top row is a saying which stretches across the entire 2 page fold.  Among those sayings are “Juniors Prepare to Become Seniors of Tomorrow” and “Senior Rings Make Juniors’ Fairy Tale Come True.”  You DO NOT want the be pictured on the top row. There are a total of 13 deceased classmates pictured on the top row, and only 18 total on the five rows below. In other words, 1/6 of the total number of pictures on the page constitute 13/18 of the total of the deceased on the page.  Over 70% of the dead members of the class to date are pictured on the top row.  Unfortunately my picture is on the top row.  To make matters worse, 3 of the deceased are pictured on the far right of the top row.  To put it another way, roughly 4% of the deceased occupy the far right portion of the top row–my spot.  I also noted that the male-female ratio is almost 50-50, with about 2 more males than females going to “Yellow Jacket Heaven.”   I also noted that there was a slightly larger number of  male deceased wearing light, solid colors in the photographs.  The edge among the female deceased went to patterned blouses.  Only one of the deceased wore glasses. Three of the males had “flat top” haircuts.  I can not do anything about my photograph placement, but from now on I am going to wear dark colors,  glasses,  and have long hair to improve my chances of survival.