Dear Alan Alda, You're still in good health, right?

Back when I was aware of Ed McMahon (86), Farrah Fawcett (62) and Michael Jackson (50) on a day-to-day basis, the news that each of them would pass away shortly before I turned 40 would have sounded reasonable to me; being young and immortal at the time, the prospect of entering my own 40s would have to mean that everyone, particularly people who were already grown and famous, would be impossibly old by then as well.

Turns out that's not the case at all.

Forty--as anyone who has attained the age can attest--is in fact surprisingly young, once you actually get there (week from tomorrow, thank you very much), and the adult stars of my youth are likewise, many of them, still entirely "too young to die" - except insofar as some of them still do.

Rest in peace, y'all.