My List of Top 10 Dead Famous People I Wish I Could Break Bread With

Sometimes when it is really late at night and I can't sleep, I start thinking about odd things to entertain myself. A few years ago, I asked myself who I would most like to have a conversational dinner with, but that wasn't all that interesting until I thought about dead people I wished I could sit down with. Of course these would need to be on varying nights because I can't imagine having them all in the same room and I would hope they would still look like their "live" selves, or I wouldn't have much of an appetite...

(In no particular order)

1. Shirley Jackson is one of my favorite authors and I bemoan that I never met her. Perhaps best known for "The Lottery", but Shirley wrote other stories that haunt me more than that little allegory. She was a master storyteller who showed how seemingly regular and normal people could be evil. Her mind must have been a strange place. I wonder how she was able to create such a body of work that examined darkness and still was able to function as a wife and mother. She wrote hilarious stories about her kids and I suspect they balanced her, but I am fascinated by her voice. I think she deserved a lot more recognition than she ever got and I wish I could tell her that. Another story I am particularly fond of is called "The Most Wonderful Thing". It is about two women who wind up on the maternity ward together. One woman is in denial that she has just given birth to a healthy baby and the other is just beginning to come to terms with her baby's death. Shirley Jackson was a wizard at showing people at their very best and their worst. In 1965 she died of heart failure at the age of 48.

2. It seems sort of crazy to have to explain who Lucille Ball was, but for those who have been in hiding without electricity since the early 1930's, she was an American comedienne, an icon, perhaps best known for being Lucy in "I Love Lucy" opposite her real life husband Desi Arnaz. Towards the end of her life she also starred in a movie called "The Stone Pillow" in which she played an elderly homeless woman. Lucy made us all laugh and she even made some people think. She passed away in 1989 at the age of 77 from complications following heart surgery.

3. When I think about John Denver, I remember someone who was a "gentle agitator" who did so much as a musician and poet and perhaps even more meaningfully as an activist. I wonder how many people, who grew up in the 1970's watching him sing with the Muppets, also watched what he did environmentally and were inspired to become activists themselves? He had such a gentle way about him and was able to inspire others to be better people. Aside from being an environmental activist, he was also very active in fighting for economic justice and the rights of the poor. I love so many of his songs like

"Poems, Prayers and Promises" which I hope my children will appreciate someday.

"The days they pass so quickly now
Nights are seldom long
And time around me whispers when its cold
The changes somehow frighten me
Still I have to smile
It turns me on to think of growing old
For though my life's been good to me
There's still so much to do
So many things my mind has never known
Id like to raise a family
Id like to sail away
And dance across the mountains on the moon"
And just part of the chorus:
And talk of poems and prayers and promises
And things that we believe in
How sweet it is to love someone
How right it is to care"

John Denver was killed at the age of 54 when his plane crashed in California.

4. When John Steinbeck wrote "The Grapes of Wrath", he was 37 years old and had grown up in California, watching the economic effects of the Dust Bowl migrants and seasonal workers and much of his writing reflected what he witnessed from the struggles of working class people. Perhaps one of his greatest strengths as a writer was his ability to flavor the tone of his characters language in such believable ways. I admire that and wonder what he didn't get to finish during his lifetime. I would ask him what would have happened next. He was 66 years old when he died of a heart attack.

5. The fifteenth President of the United States, James Buchanan Jr., was one of US News and World Reports 10 worst Presidents. "He refused to challenge either the spread of slavery or the growing bloc of states that became the Confederacy" I wonder why he wasn't more of a champion for civil rights because at the time there was a lot of whispering about his personal life and his relationship with Alabama Senator William Rufus King. He is thought to be the first US President who was homosexual and the only President ever to have served without being married. His "first lady" was his niece. There is no physical evidence to support that he was gay perhaps because his family burned many of his letters after his death. Oregon achieved statehood during Buchanan's Presidency. He died at age 77. I would probably be too embarrassed to ask him anything really personal, but he would be interesting to talk to and I would definitely question him about slavery.

6. Many people say they want to end poverty, but few people truly dedicate their life to fight it. Although some critics say that she merely worked to keep people alive rather than attacking the root causes of poverty, Mother Teresa was able to bring attention to the poor and show how one person could work to help others. She was fearless in her dedication to help the sick and hungry. I am haunted by the words she spoke when she was asked what we can do to promote world peace as she was given the Nobel Peace Price, "Go home and love your family", she said. Mother Teresa was 87 when she passed away in 1997.

7. In the mid 1980's, my 9th Grade history teacher let us watch the movie Gandhi and I think it was my first exposure to the concept of non-violent resistance. I wasn't able to grasp how that would impact my life back then, but it is something that I value today and I often use. By now, you can probably see some similar threads that show what is most important to me and Gandhi organized poor people to protest the Indian government, worked to eradicate poverty and fought to end caste discrimination. He was 78 when he was assassinated.

8. I'm not really sure what I would say to Albert Einstein, because I think I would be feeling inept, but I can imagine telling him about the book. "Driving Mr. Albert; A Trip Across America With Einstein's Brain," by Michael Paterniti who wrote, ''I first heard the story of Albert Einstein's brain as an urban myth too weird to believe.'' Dr. Thomas Stoltz Harvey was the hospital pathologist who performed the autopsy and, removed Einstein's brain. Harvey then took it home with him where he stored it in various places like cookie jars and Tupperware bowls until he met Paterniti and finally took the brain to Einstein's granddaughter. Only in America! I wonder what the good scientist would think about that? Einstein died in 1955 at age 76.

9. One of my favorite artists is a Lithuanian photographer, Izis Bidermanas. His photographs are little windows so we can see what was happening in Paris in the 1950's with circus performers, a carousel (my article on Merry Go Round), and small children. Litjews.org says that, "Izis' photographs are beautiful, filled with love for people whose lives are difficult, but spiritually rich." His parents, two brothers and sister were killed in Marijampolë in the early 1940's and he carried his grief forward so his photography reflects a sadness that I think is significant. In 1980 he died at the age of 69.

10. When I was growing up I spent many hours in libraries and when I was about ten years old or so, I discovered a world where a little girl lived in a log house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin and so with a gentle voice, Laura Ingalls Wilder entered my life and influenced a love of history and of exploring. I wish I could tell her how many people loved the Little House books and how many readers she inspired. Laura passed away in 1957 at the age of 90.

Usnews.com, The Top 10 Worst Presidents, US News and World Reports

Dalija EPŠTEINAITĖ, An Inherited Path, "Jerusalem of Lithuania"

Michael Paterniti, A Trip Across America With Einstein's Brain, Dial Press, 2001