Tales from the Crypt

Gray cloth caskets are cheap. When I say cheap, I mean really, really cheap. Fiberboard covered with gray cloth, the inside stuffed with straw. But if you can't afford a decent burial, or the departed is headed for the retort, it can seem like a smart choice.

I spent a couple of years working at a funeral home that did a lot of business. On average, about 400-500 calls a year. We had a nice casket display room downstairs, with several versions of the mid and high range caskets on hand. The gray cloth we had one, and then several back ups in a warehouse a few miles away.

So, one day we're burying a rather heavy gentleman in a gray cloth. The morning of the funeral, the mourners came to the funeral home to pay their last respects. After a final viewing, we ushered them out to their cars to await the hearse and the ride to the church. Once everyone was out of the funeral home and in their cars, we closed up the casket and went to move it on to the church truck. Four of us grabbed the casket, one at each corner. We lifted, and the casket rose. All except for the bottom and the corpse.

Not good. Worse, we didn't have another gray cloth on hand. As the unknowing family and friends sat idling in their cars, waiting to proceed to the church, me and one of the other guys jumped in a van and sped off to the warehouse to grab a replacement.

All that is bad enough. But it gets better. We get to the warehouse, which is a garage for the hearses. There's a second floor where the caskets are kept. Thankfully, the hearses were not there. But we had to run up stairs, throw straps around a casket and use a hoist to lower it down to the ground floor. Then, load it in to the van and race back to the funeral home.

We got back, put the casket on the church truck, and lifted the body in. Thankfully, the second casket did not give out during the service. The family was never the wiser.

RIP Bob Bogle

RIP, Richard Wright

I remarked today that one of the things that sucks about having mature taste in music is that you have to watch the greats pass on, one after the other.

And no one sings me lullabyes
And no one makes me close my eyes
So I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky....

Good night, funny man

"Atheism is a non-prophet organization."

"Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist. "

"Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday."

"If this is the best God can do, I'm not impressed."

Tomorrow Never Knows

RIP Albert Hofmann.

Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream,
It is not dying, it is not dying

Lay down all thought, surrender to the void,
Is it shining? Is it shining?

That you may see the meaning of within
It is being, it is being

Love is all and love is everyone
Is it knowing? Is it knowing?

That ignorance and hate may mourn the dead
It is believing, it is believing

But listen to the colour of your dreams
Is it not living, is it not living

Or play the game "Existence" to the end
Of the beginning, of the beginning