$1,661.87 in cats (ROCKETMAN_S) said...

It amounts now to about 36% of my graduating class are already dead.

But then I remember statistics from somewhere that you follow 100 people from age 20 to 65 and 37 of those never live to see the age of 65. Only about 10 are really self-sufficient, and only 1 could be considered "rich". And the remainder are either still working or are dependent on some kind of public assistance.

Neither of my parents made it to even 60. So I feel like I'm on unexplored ground now that more than half my life has been lived after they were gone.

Wow... those are some stats. May I ask what your age is? Because I know that as we get older... we tend to loose more people so if you're in your mid 70's or older... then 36% wouldn't seem so high. My father had his 70 year reunion and 12 people showed up but I don't know the size of his graduating class.

I'm 63 now and we had a graduating class of 1200... and at our 40 year reunion (2016), they mentioned 124 people had died and that they were still unable to contact another 80 people. So even if the 80 we have been unable to contact were to be included in the dead... that would still be only 17% of my graduating class. If they were not included, it would be only 10%!

My mother passed away at 83 and my father is still alive at 92... and his mother lived until 97!

FWIW

That number seems high but could be common.

I wonder if there are regional health risks. Some areas have higher than average focus on health and fitness than others.

Environment may have something to do with it.

Higher crime rates in inner cities vs rural areas might have something to do with it as well.

FWIW

Stress as well.

I'm only 62. But a lot of classmates evidently lived fast and died young. And at the time I saw that figure, we were only 58.

Showtalk said:

That number seems high but could be common.

More hazards seen by more of them.

The number who were murdered was actually an unexpected surprise. But then the heart attacks - a lot of them smoked like chimneys, even back when we were still in high school. Many dipped snuff or chewed tobacco, so oral cancers wouldn't surprise me either after 3 to 4 decades of such an addictive habit.

And I know of at least one in the class right before mine who died of a drug overdose, and was the subject of a forensic investigation of his remains, when found a year later. Seems his so-called "friends" panicked and fled, and they ended up charged with voluntary manslaughter or something and went to prison. That was decades ago when they were all still in their late 20s or early 30s.

$1,661.87 in cats (ROCKETMAN_S) said...

I'm only 62. But a lot of classmates evidently lived fast and died young. And at the time I saw that figure, we were only 58.

So you're just a year younger than me.

I'm not sure of the cause of death for a lot of my classmates, but I do know that 8 died in car crashes, 2 on motorcycles, we had about 10 or so who over dosed on drugs and then the heart attacks, strokes and other diseases... some from cancer.

There was one strange guy though... actually, he was 2 years my senior... but he died in a shootout with the police. It was an 8 hour shootout... he killed one police officer and wounded 3 others. When he finally dropped to the ground, the autopsy report said that he was hit more than 80 times but just wouldn't go down! That shooting made state-wide news. He was in his late 40s or early 50s when that happened. Friends of mine said that he had become a bit mentally deranged.

FWIW

They could have called the police even anonymously.  I’m glad they were able to track them down.

Showtalk said:

They could have called the police even anonymously. I’m glad they were able to track them down.

They also could have dropped him at the nearest emergency room while he was still alive.

But then the dude apparently was so awful to some people that his premature demise was to them, "good riddance."