Say what you will about the Statesman, it still permits good, old-fashioned tributes to the dead. Some papers these days, even when the notice is paid, as most of them are now, adhere to a rigid format that's like a bad and sparse resume and gives no flavor of the family or the character or accomplishments of the deceased. If the person memorialized isn't known to the reader, the most interesting parts are where he or she was born and where the children now reside.