April 6, 2008 - Derby Dead Pool Update

Maybe I finally found my prognostication niche. My NCAA pool was over before it started as The Ohio State University had no chance to reach the Final Four, even though I had them as a write-in selection. My real gift may be selecting DEAD PEOPLE, or rather, picking people that will probably die soon.

It has been over 2 months, but I finally got my second hit on my Derby Dead Pool.

The Derby Dead Pool is where you list 20 people that you think will die in 2008. The winner last year correctly predicted 10 of his 20 celebrity deaths. You get points based on how they die and how old they were at the time of their death.

I haven’t had any activity since Suzanne Pleshette died on January 23. Until this weekend.

Charlton Heston died yesterday after a battle with dementia. He was the star of 150 films and TV series, among them "The Ten Commandments", "Ben Hur" and my favorite, "The Planet of the Apes".

Heston also led the National Rifle Association, believing that it is "man's God-given right" to own guns. In the below photo, Charlton Heston accepting a presentation rifle at 2000 NRA convention with the now well-known exclamation "From my cold, dead hands!"

Funeral arraignments are yet to be finalized as the mortuary team is still trying to pry the rifle from Heston’s hands.

I always admired Heston for his disdain for political correctness. Heston stated, "If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd still be King George's boys - subjects bound to the British crown."

I received six points for my Heston selection, which moved me to 66th place out of 459 teams. There is still a lot of time left, maybe not for my selections, but in the calendar year for a comeback.