Everybody Does It

Okay, I know I'm gonna get some mail bombs for this, but I couldn't resist. So before you go getting all Ted Kaczynski on me, think of this. In a world of continuous struggle, hatred, and difference, what's the one thing that everyone on this planet has in common? That's right. "It's a funny thing about lifetimes," someone once wrote, "they're not like yardsticks. No one can know exactly how long one is until they've measured it end to end. A life is more like the ink in a ballpoint pen, sealed up, ready for use, finite but of unknown length."

William Dies was born in 1850 and died in 1933. He lived through the Civil War, Spanish-American War, The Great War, the Roaring 20s, and died during the Dust Bowl Era. In a time when the average lifespan was 57, he made it to 83. His wife Sarah, born a year later than he, died in 1940.