Jefferson St. Tree Sculpture

This sculpture is from the 2007 ice storm that wrecked this area.

Unusual Survival Kit Staples: Buy a lot of beer.

This sculpture by one of the Urn Garden artists keeps coming around, and there’s always a wild story to go with it.  The latest is a client who was involved with a Las Vegas animal rescue operation back in the ’80’s. She handled exotics.

Big cats and monkeys.

Funny thing, this story had a familiar ring to it.

Turns out, she had the ashes of a lioness that had been in the closet all these years. She stumbled on to our Brave Heart lion keepsake urn while shopping for a different style cremation urn for another sad occasion.

One look and she knew she had to deal with the lion in the closet. She’s only has half the ashes.  This urn is designed for keepsake size portions and won’t accommodate all of her ashes.  But she has a plan.

Campbell St. Roadside Memorial

The tree in midtown has become a roadside memorial.

According to a letter owned by Phil Castinetti, the sports memorabilia king of New England, Red Sox legend Ted Williams had a longtime wish to be cremated immediately after his death. The letter, dated Dec. 19, 1991, is an authentic writing from the desk of Teddy Ballgame himself.

“It is my wish that no funeral or memorial service of any kind be held and that my remains be cremated as soon as possible after my death,” Williams wrote in the letter nearly two decades ago. “I want you to see that my ashes are sprinkled at sea off the coast of Florida where the water is very deep.”

Williams’ three children fought bitterly over the body of their legendary father.  In a perfect world, the letter in Castinetti’s collection would be used to do justice in the case of Ted Williams,  but rather than have his wishes carried out, Williams was taken to a lab in Arizona where his remains were kept suspended in liquid nitrogen.

Last year, a lab executive documented the brutal inhumane treatment of Williams’ head at the cryogenics center shortly after his death in 2002.

Ted Williams Death Mask

Rather than being scattered in Florida as he’d always wished, the body of the Red Sox legend was mutilated and disgraced.

In life, Williams never got the respect he deserved. The fans in Boston booed him, the media blasted him, his personal life was unstable and troubled. In death, Teddy Ballgame has been treated even worse.

Source:

Deep Fried Turkey Disasters

Life Unworthy of Life

BERLIN, 1.Sept.1939.

Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. med. Brandt are instructed to broaden the powers of physicians designated by name, who will decide whether those who have – as far as can be humanly determined – incurable illnesses can, after the most careful evaluation, be granted a mercy death.

(Signed, A. Hitler

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Houdini’s Last Trick:

At New York’s Shelton Hotel on August 5th, 1926, in plain view of invited journalists and using no breathing apparatus, Harry Houdini lay in a sealed casket at the bottom of a swimming pool for an hour and a half. His motivation for the feat was the opportunity to expose Egyptian fakir Rahman Bey, a man who at the time was wowing crowds with the same stunt but attributing his survival to supernatural powers.

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Daniel Webb spent the rest of his days playing with his four dogs and talking about religion to other people on the Internet. He would sit in that recliner, slowly dying, for the next eight months. Webb’s body was physically stuck to the power recliner and firefighters had to cut him from the chair to take him to the hospital.

Excerpt from an earlier post: “Refreshments, Anyone?”

During the last years of his life, my grandfather would mix a few Manhattans , turn on the tape recorder and lay down his memoirs. I’m glad he did. Here’s an excerpt of a WWII experience when he was a 20-something Okie in the Coral Sea on the U.S.S. Yorktown:

“Our dive bombers scored a total of only two 1000 bomb hits but they were devastating. The Shokaku broke immediately in fire from stem to stern and from water line to the forepeak. They had ignited her aircraft fuel lines on the hanger deck. Wow-what a fire!

Then it was our turn. We had a good view of the Shokaku because she was afire and smoking heavily. We had only two enemy fighters attack us but our escorting fighters took care of them. The only thing wrong was that we were still dropping Mark Thirteen torpedoes and they ran, true to form, either too deep or they broached, and those that hit the ship simply bounced off as duds.

The Lexington planes didn’t fare too much better. They got one bomb hit on the Shokaki but, because of the stinko weather, they mostly got lost and milled around until it was time to return to base.

Meanwhile, our “bases” were catching it from the Japs, those Japanese torpedo and dive bombers were so much faster than ours that our fighters were amazed! For instance- their torpedo planes came in at a speed of 180 knots with torpedos attached…Our TBD aircraft were limited to about 120 knots with a fish attached.

The Yorktown took a bomb hit just aft of the super structure- right near elevator two. It went clear to the fifth deck (the armored deck) and exploded. It killed forty-one members of the Repair Crew Fire who were located in the Ship’s Service Compartment on the third deck. A lot more of those guys died later in sick bay.

When we arrived back at the Yorktown I couldn’t see much damage to her because all the damage was below decks. The bomb hit left nothing but about a ten inch hole in the flight deck where it went through.

The Skipper of the Yorktown- Captain Elliot Buckmaster ordered the flight crews below to the ready room where they dispensed a shot of whiskey to all of us. Actually, it would have taken a lot more than one shot to assuage my feeling that evening. I was plumb shook from the day’s actions and tired as hell.

The next announcement was that the ships cooks were serving sandwiches in the crew’s mess, below.

Now, the crew’s mess hall was right next to the sick bay, and one had to go through the passageway outside sick bay to get to the mess hall. The salvage and repair crews had stacked all of the dismembered and unidentified parts of human bodies from Repair Five in that passageway like a big stack of hay….Then, too, the water from fighting fires was sloshing back and forth across the deck- about four inches deep. Of course it was mostly blood from the pile of arms, legs, torsos, intestines, etc. in that stack. Then, there was the smell of butchered flesh. It smelled just like a slaughter house smells. To say the least- by the time I saw and smelled all of that, I sure as hell didn’t want a sandwich. In fact, I don’t remember being too hungry for several days after that. All night long, that night I could hear the funeral prayers being said and the sound of the bodies being ceremoniously dumped over the side in to the sea as their last resting place.”

GG Aulick RIP

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.  ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Veteran’s Day Sale:

Americana Urn

Our solid brass cremation urn with vibrant red, white, and blue enamel is on sale and includes an engraved silver medallion for $235.00

American Pride Cremation Urn

Our solid brass American Pride cremation urn features a rich slate finish, hand-engraved with an American Eagle and the American Flag. Perfect for a military funeral service, or patriotic soul.

Eternity Flag Case Urn

The Eternity is a combination walnut flag case and urn. Back of the flag case contains urn compartment with 225 cubic inch capacity. Embossed Great Seal on elegant beveled glass. Heirloom Walnut with hinged lid, concealed magnetic closure and dust seal to preserve your 5′ x 9.5′ standard size burial flag.  The Eternity Urn is: