Katie Couric's Notebook: Buchwald
Video: Decades before anyone heard of Jon Stewart, a political satirist named Art Buchwald mocked the crazy ways of Washington.
He struggled with depression...but outwardly he was the consummate bon vivant. A college dropout, Buchwald wrote from Paris and then returned to America...and became a Pulitzer Prize winner and THE Washington humorist.
Buchwald said that dying was actually the best time of his life. Faced with dialysis, he checked himself into a hospice last February. Doctors thought he'd live a few weeks. But he kept going...turning his last days into months, and into a vibrant salon of movers and shakers.
He wrote that "the beauty of not dying--but expecting to--is that it gives you a chance to say goodbye to everyone...and you get to eat McDonald's."
Art Buchwald died last night...but showed us that death doesn't have to be isolating and lonely. Sometimes, it can be a celebration...and an opportunity for love and even laughter.
That's a page from my notebook.