The last time when

I've had this book around since it first came out in 1982 and I must say, I was more than a bit surprised to look it up here and see that there has never been a commentary submitted. I say that because, it's the sort of book that people would pull out a party or family gathering and randomly select either some of funniest "lasts" - or some of the most poignant. And there are plenty of both, along with memory joggers, whether in the field of sports, politics, art, literature, war, technology - you name it, it's likely here. And that includes "famous last words." It was compiled and written by the late George Gipe, born in Boston on February 3, 1933, and the author of such novels as Nearer To The Dust (1967) and The Coney Island Quickstep (1977), the non-fiction The Great American Sports Book (1978), and who also wrote the screenplays, in conjunction with Steve Martin and Carl Reiner, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) and The Man With two Brains (1983). His own words best describe the scope of the book: "The study of firsts has produced several books, deservedly so, as a first is generally innovative and symbolic of progress and the human race's unwillingness to accept defeat. Yet while the term "end of an era" has come to be part of the language, no major work has been dedicated to the study of lasts, I feel this is a regrettable oversight because lasts often make better reading than firsts and in many ways illuminate the human condition with more clarity, poignancy, and realism. After all, few of us are likely to invent the first phonograph, be the first to walk on the moon, or run a sub-four-minute mile