... but George Cressman did something about it -- well, sort of. George P. Cressman was the director of the National Weather Service from 1965 to 1979 and was nothing less than a legend in his field. He was, as one of his colleagues told me for today's obituary, "really, truly a giant in meteorology."

Cressman brought weather forecasting into the computer age and is considered, in many ways, the father of what meteorologists call "numerical weather prediction." In the mid-1950s, long before the rest of the world was aware of what computers could do, Cressman developed a program that allowed the first computerized forecasts to be made. He went on to launch all sorts of other advances in the Weather Service, such as expanding the network of local weather branches and radar systems. Oh, and he did the forecasts for the military's top-secret atomic bomb explosions in the Nevada desert.

We are what we do, to a large extent, and Milton Altman was used to calculating what is and is not a good deal. So when the retired drapery salesman bought a used car at the age of 95, he rejected an extended warranty on the grounds that it was unlikely he'd outlive it -- the warranty would have expired when he was 102.

You know where this is going... the penny-pinching salesman died at the age of 106. The Chevy was still running.

What do you think: Did Robert Vesco die quietly in Cuba last November, or is this yet another vanishing act?

I know that Pabst Blue Ribbon beer is retro-fashionable these days, but as a poor college student in Milwaukee 30-mumble years ago, even my crowd shunned the down-market PBR. There's a guy on the South Side of Chicago who likes it so much that he's going to be buried in a PBR coffin.

We just got a note from a reader from Scotland who asked for an obit of Deborah Palfrey, the D.C. Madam, who committed suicide yesterday at her mother's house. He argued for a formal obituary on this basis:

" -- If one of her diaper wearing clients from the senate died tomorrow, you would run his obituary
-- Just because she committed suicide does not make her less note-worthy
-- She died during her fifteen minutes of fame
-- This lady's death speaks volumes about the American justice system and the hypocritical views on prostitution."

Thinking about Ms. Palfrey, I was reminded of all those other women who have been called crazy over the years: Martha Mitchell, Molly Ivins, Zelda Fitzgerald, to name but a few. Columnist Ellen Goodman wrote a thoughtful column about Mitchell in 1976, upon her death. We're trying to get a digital version of it online, but in the meantime, let me quote:

"Here's to all the Crazy Ladies who wanted to be Somebody and settled for being Outrageous. May they rest in peace. Here's to all the Crazy Ladies who were patted on the head while they were harmless pets and were ruthlessly punished when they became serious. ...Here's to them all, the Crazy Ladies who, finally, after a lifetime, refused to stay in their places. Here's to all the frivolous, flaky ladies who dropped the mask of the lovable fool.
Here's to the one who changed too late to save herself. May she rest in peace."

Vladimir Nabokov, the celebrated Russian author of "Lolita," "Pale Fire" and other monuments of 20th-century literature, was working on a new novel, "The Original of Laura," at the time of his death in 1977. He ordered that the manuscript be burned. His command makes you wonder about any relative's "dying wishes."

It's one thing for Grandma to make a last visit to the ancestral home (think of Horton Foote's wonderful play and film "The Trip to Bountiful"), but should someone reach out from the grave to deny the world a potential masterpiece?

Many, many years ago, on my first government job -- picking up trash and dead dogs for the Texas Highway Department -- I came across a puppy carcass beside IH-35 and, sadly, tossed the little body into the back of our converted gravel truck. An hour or so later, I clambered up the side of our odiferous, old truck and was shocked to see the little tan creature prancing around among the trash. Just stunned, I suppose. Rufus Cochrum, my trash-truck buddy, and I were so happy, it made the rest of the beastly hot summer day go by in a breeze. The puppy -- eyes alert, tongue out and tail wagging -- sat up front between us.

I thought of Rufus and the pup with two lives when I read this morning's story in the Austin American-Statesman about an April 17 traffic accident victim who was declared dead at the scene -- and then revived a short time later. A second paramedic team who by chance drove upon the accident decided to try to resuscitate the person because of the victim's age and the possibility that the person's organs could be donated. It worked.

We've never had to rescind an obituary here at The Post, and I suppose we never will, but that's one I'd surely be happy to write.

Imagine an explosion so powerful it blows two light planes out of the sky, kills more than 500 people -- including a number of firefighters incinerated at the scene -- injured more than 7,000 others and destroyed 500 homes. All that happened on April 6, 1947, when the Grandcamp, a French Liberty ship loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer, blew up while docked in the Gulf Coast port of Texas City, Tex. It's considered the worst industrial disaster in American history.The ammonium nitrate that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 weighed two tons; the ammonium nitrate aboard the Grandcamp weighed approximately 2,300 tons.

Texas City comes to mind because of an obit we'll be running shortly for a retired Justice Department lawyer who defended the government against claims growing out of the disaster, claims that totaled more than $200 million. In 1953, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 4-to-3 that the government was not liable under the Federal Claims Tort Act.

Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor is hoping to wrest control of obituaries and death notices from the newspaper industry, just as he did with employment postings.