I did, in fact, do that - come close to dying. My own doctor said, "You were as good as gone." 

The man has a way with words. 

Several weeks ago the idea was to put a new aortic valve in my heart at Emory Hospital, which surgeons accomplished. The problem arose when my heart wouldn't start beating on its own again after it had been stilled for the operation and its role had been taken over by a machine. 

It was a touchy few days. 

"They told us," said a friend, " `It doesn't look good,' but their eyes and faces said it was over." 

But here I am. Miracles happen. 

What's it like to come close to dying? I really don't know. While all that was going on, while friends and family said they were going through the anguish of it all, I wasn't around. 

My bloated old body was, but my mind - set free of the pain and the dread by w hatever it was they were shooting in my veins - wasn't even in the same vicinity or time period. 

They could have given me a head transplant and I'd never have known it. 

I was even in World War II at one point while they carved away on me. 

Get this dream vision: 

Eisenhower himself called me to his command post during the war in 1943 and told me some of Hitler's generals wanted to surrender, but they couldn't convince the Fuhrer. 

Ike, knowing how many Discovery and Arts and Entertainment Channel World War II black-and-white documentaries I had watched, put me in charge of finding a way to convince Hitler it was useless to continue the war against the Allies. 

Piece of cake. I found a few of the scientists who would later work on the Manhattan Project and develop the atomic bomb and got them to draw me a picture of what one looked like. I showed it to Hitler's generals, and they took it back to the Fuhrer, who called off the war and there wasn't even a Normandy invasion. 

And another La-La land experience: British golf officials came to me and explained they might have to call off the British Open because it was a tradition each year's champion must drink a special grog, the recipe for which had been lost, and you know how the British are about tradition. 

That was easy, too. I located an old woman living in a back alley in St. Andrews, Scotland, who had the recipe and I saved the Open. A damned fine grog it was, too, incidentally. 

I had no out-of-body experiences. I saw no bright lights that I followed into a tunnel. I heard no angels singing. 

On the other hand I got no whiff of smoke, either, something to be avoided at all costs when one is hovering near the ultimate embarkation point. 

There was never any fear. Never any dread. There were no warning bells, nor voices of instruction regarding a journey's end and perhaps another's beginning. 

I didn't see God, I didn't see the Devil, and please don't be tacky enough to ask about Elvis. 

I guess all that is a good thing. Had I closed on that proverbial piece of rural property (croaked), it would have been a peaceful no- hassle exit - for me, at least. And what did the gambler say: "The best you can hope for is to die in your sleep?" 

So, if I had died, that would have been a piece of cake, too. But when have I ever taken the easy way out of anything? Coming close to dying was a snap. Living the rest of my life surrounded by everybody and his brother-in-law who is suddenly a health expert is going to be the hard part.