My 15 dead friends (potentially)

/

I’m once again in the process of revising my Friendship Application.

image

As I’ve debated new categories to add to my list and the revision of others, I’ve begun to wonder about who I might have befriended from the days of yore.

In short, what dead men and women I would have wanted as friends.

So I’ve begun a list. My criteria is this:

  • The person must be a slam dunk. In the past several days, I have considered dozens of maybes and probablys, but unless I can say for certain that I would call that dead person my friend, he or she is not added to the list.
  • I cannot add people to the list for curiosity sake. For example, I would love to hear the truth about the Kennedy assassination from Lee Harvey Oswald, but that desire for information is not enough to befriend him.
  • I am seeking people of similar mindsets and sensibilities, as well as those individuals who so thoroughly impress me that I would want to spend as much time as possible in their company.

Here’s what I’ve got so far, in order of preference:

  • H.L. Mencken

image

  • Voltaire
  • Jonathan Swift
  • Eleanor Roosevelt
  • Mark Twain
  • Richard Pryor

image

  • Winston Churchill 
  • Ida Tarbell

image

  • Roald Dahl
  • Harriet Tubman
  • Oscar Wilde
  • George Carlin
  • Ida B. Wells
  • Bing Crosby

image

  • Douglas Adams
  • Thomas Paine

If you have any suggestions for additions, please send them along.

If you would like to generate your own list and share it with the rest of us, that would be even better.