Life in the Garden

Matters of Life and Death

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Welcome to McDonalds

Customer service note: While catching up with one of our interns who resides in the Orlando, FL area he mentioned visiting a McDonalds at about 3:30 AM. Intern places order at the speaker and is told that despite being open for business at this hour, they have a very limited menu, no chicken, no beef patties, just buns apparently. Intern says, no thanks, he’ll move on. Order taker replies ” Thank you for choosing McDonalds, now go suck a d–k!”

Very nice.

Now board the time machine (or leave) more notes from Grandfather’s diary: This first entry isn’t dated, and probably occurred several weeks after the bombing at Pearl Harbor, late December 1941 or January 1942.

“It was quite a shock to see what the Japs had done to that place. Battleships were laying all over the place. We took off from the Yorktown just off shore in Pearl Harbor and flew into Ford Island but Ford Island was in no shape to receive aircraft so we proceeded to Eva Field- a Marine air base out near Barber’s Point. We did make some low passes out near Barber’s and that picture will always be indelible in my mind. The Oklahoma was bottoms up. The Nevada was beached in the channel and the Arizona was fifteen feet under water at her berth, completely destroyed down to a hulk.

The U.S.S. OGALALA, an underwater mine vessel was sunk right in the middle of the harbor. Her crew scuttled her before the Japs got a chance to bomb her. If they hadn’t done that, I’m sure Pearl Harbor would be a few feet deeper because that ship was loaded with mines when the attack started. Fuel oil was all over the place- at least four inches thick.

We got replacements for our planes and crewman that we had lost. There wasn’t much frolicking going on around Honolulu in those days. There was a 2100 curfew, it was asking to get shot to be out after dark.

Man, that Eva Field was a feeder. Those Marine cooks had an outdoor barbecue pit rigged up and they served the darndest barbecue beef you ever tasted. After the food we had been eating aboard the Yorkamaru, that was heaven. We all ate like there was no tomorrow and for some of us, there wasn’t……

Today’s Memorial Tattoo:

Today’s tip: Spend the day with a toddler.

Own It!

Greetings!

Three Beautiful Things:

Fresh fruit salad
Naps
Knowing someone still loves you in your most unattractive moment

While wandering around the internets we stumbled onto this amusing post, I tuned in because the author had ripped a couple of my pix and referred to some of my product.

Jetpacks pointed out the Trimspa is still pimping Anna Nicole’s image. Howard K. Stern is probably licensing a deal for the Anna Nicole Smith Halloween costume. How many dead sexy Annas’ will we see later this fall?

Everything is for sale, and if you haven’t seen Mike Judge’s Idiocracy, check it out on DVD. Thanks again to JP for tipping us off. “Don’t expect too much, as it is a satire about a dumbed-down nation, but the many (and brilliant) stabs at corporations were severe enough to cause this movie to have to go underground.

No studio backing for its release. No marketing push. Left to flounder in limited runs in 16 cities, in some cases being billed as “Untitled Comedy by Mike Judge.” Then dumped on the DVD market with no publicity, hopefully to die a quiet death. That’s what happens when you bite the hands of Starbucks, Costco, Carls’ Jr., FedEx, American Express, Fox News and more. People wear disposable logo shirts in the year 2505 and anyone who reads is “a fag.”

Branding has been on our mind lately, I’ve noticed that the rock stars of the yoga world have branded their own styles of the ancient practice, including BREATHING. On the flip side of breathing, the McDeath of the funeral world has been in litigation over the attempt to trademark “Family Funeral Care”. Independents have been fighting hard to shut it down, funeral directors love the word “Dignity” and SCI already owns that.

AS SEEN ON TV: Our intern spotted some of our wares that we sold to MTV as props for one of their sick puppet shows.
Today’s Tip for Better Living: Take the last train to Clarksville.

Stop The Clock!

Greetings!

Urngarden is a career change for us, and was started after some sad events in our life, we sensed the changes that were happening in the industry (yes, death is an industry) and felt like we could offer families and funeral homes an alternative. Families have embraced the opportunity, funeral homes are another story.

There is a lot of angst within the funeral home world. The public has dictated that they don’t ALWAYS want the traditional casket/viewing/burial service. Funeral directors are feeling the squeeze. Not only from the public but the vendors they do business with. There are too many funeral homes for the death rate.

The Chinese are mastering the Western style of casket manufacturing and this frustrates the vendors. The quality is good and the prices are fantastic. That translates to jobs for the American manufacturers. Locally, a casket manufacturer closed their plant to “consolidate operations”. Meaning: move production to Mexico.

Recently, we spoke with a family who’s mother died suddenly. She had several children and the kids were aware of mother’s wishes to be cremated. One son held out for burial, the funeral home seized upon HIS wish and $10,000 later (without a marker) this family is struggling to pay the bill. Sometime ago, I met with the funeral director that handled the arrangements and we talked about the impact of cremation on his business. He was bitter about the trend and referred to it as “body disposal”. Morally, he feels cremation is wrong but says he’ll honor the families he serves. Hmmmmm.

Regarding morals and serving your customers I found this article of interest on the issues a Target in Minnesota is having with some of their cashiers.
More later…..

More death and burial folklore from Vance Randolph:

When a death finally occurs, one of the bereaved neighbors rises immediately and stops the clock. Everybody knows that if the clock should happen to stop of itself while a corpse is lying in the house, another member of the family would die within a year, and it’s best not to take no chances.

The next thing to do is cover every mirror in the house with white cloths, which are not removed until after the funeral. This is done out of consideration for those who may come in to view the body, for it one of them should glimpse his own reflection in the house of death, it is believed that he will never live to see another summer.

In some houses, immediately after a death occurs, the chairs are all turned up so that nobody can sit in them, and people who come into the presence of the dead are forced to stand. Randolph could never find the source of this belief and was told by one old-timer that “it is a new-fangled custom, brought into the country by some outlanders about 1880.”

“When a hillman dies all his bedding and articles of clothing are immediately hung on a line outdoors. People coming far down the road see this and know that the patient is dead. In predicting a sick man’s demise, I have heard people say “Poor Jim’s britches will be a-hangin’ out most any day now!”

“The hillfolk have a veritable mania for washing dead bodies; the moment a death occurs the neighbors strip the corpse and begin to scrub it vigorously. A man man be dirty all his life, and in his last illness his body and bedding may be so foul that one can harley stay in the cabin, but he goes to his grave clean. All of the work connected with a death- washing and dressing the body, is done by friends and neighbors. Not one of the near relatives of the deceased will have any part in these doings, except in the direst necessity.”

Today’s tip: Perfect your yodel.

Connections to the Past and Hillbilly Death Customs

Massaged a particularly tight bed today, it hadn’t been turned in a long time, tore it up and had a brilliant idea. Will work on the redesign. My elbows hurt, lots of rocks and clay.

Just when I start to doubt myself and question the path I’m on, we have a breakthrough!

In the mailbox: “Please help me. Joan Fonfa is an old friend with whom I have lost touch. I knew Larue as a pup and all of Joan’s other dogs, Nigia, Tigera, and LaRue. Please, I google Joan’s name every year or so hoping to find her out there. This is the lst I have found her. Please will you contact me and help me to contact her?”

We assisted Joan last year when her precious LaRue passed, Joan chose the Purple Passion Urn, although she preferred to think of it as LaRue’s Purple Palace! Joan is one of a handful of people I’ve met in the last couple of years that have purchased or built a home based on their pet’s needs.

Anyway, let’s get real….most people don’t visit the Urngarden unless they have to…and Joan called last week regarding another sad matter. The end.

Until this weekend…Joan’s long lost friend Googles her, lands in the Urngarden and I called Joan to give her the contact info. She was surprised and delighted.

Next, we’ll dig up some connections to the past, we discovered an old favorite on the bookshelf “Ozark Magic and Folklore”, by Vance Randolph.

We’ll start with death signs and wood, since many Ozarkers have lots of firewood from the recent ice storm:

“The typical hillman avoids any firewood which pops or crackles too much, in the belief that burning such wood will bring about the death of some member of his family. To burn sassafras wood is supposed to cause the death of one’s mother , and although sassafras makes very fine charcoal, no decent native will burn it, or even haul it the kiln, unless his mother is already dead. There is an old saying that the Devil sits a-straddle of the roof when sassafras pops in the fireplace.”

It is very bad luck to burn peach trees, and dreadful results are almost certain to follow.

The transplanting of cedar trees is a bad business, and the old-timers thought that the transplanter would die as soon as the cedar’s shadow was big enough to cover a grave. A man told me that the curse could be “throwed off” by putting a flat stone in the bottom of the hold where the cedar is planted, but others shook their head at this theory. I know of some boys who hired out to transplant cedars in a nursery, laughing at the old superstition, but their parents were horrified and ordered them to quit the job immediately.

The prejudice against transplanting cedars is known all through the Ozarks and parts of the South. There are people in southwest Missouri who will not under conditions plant a willow. I once asked a hired man to “stick” some willows in a gravel bar, in order to turn the creek the other way and prevent it from cutting into my field. Without mentioning the matter to me, he hired another man to attend to this. “It’s sure death for us folks to fool with willers,” he explained later, “so, I just got one o’them Henson boys. The Hensons is eddicated, an’ they don’t believe nothin'”.

When a big tree dies without any visible cause, it is a sign that a human will die before the year is out, exactly one mile north of the tree. If nobody lives there, it doesn’t matter, the old folks insist that a man, woman, or child will die at the designated spot anyhow.

Tip for today: Google a long lost friend.

Spirit of Giving

Greetings!

Three Beautiful Things:

Fat juicy worms
The gift of life
Tacos and Bloody Marys

The Spring clean up continues, we’ve been yanking shrubs, pulling weeds and marveling at the size of the worms. A decision has been made to nix the vegetable garden this year and consolidate some of the random beds through out the yard. Last year we said No New Projects, just manage what we’ve got. This year, we’re reigning it in.
In a recent post we touched on “the gift of life” and I was reminded of a customer who shared her story of how her husband’s death saved the lives of 59 people. She says,

“Chuck’s life had been a shining star to so many and as a family we wanted his giving spirit to continue. What greater way to honor, pay tribute to, and to memorialize a loved one than to give a future to someone else.”This lady was able to meet the man who received her husband’s liver.”Jim had been waiting on an organ much too long. His first grandchild, a baby girl was due in three weeks, but he was told that he only had about a week to live. He had accepted that he was going to die.”She now lectures throughout Alabama on behalf of the Alabama Organ Center educating the public on the benefits of organ donation and says, “So I am on a mission, a mission to include the stories of donor families as part of the information available.”

Beautiful, carry on!

Lately, I’ve been thinking about a former co-worker and his family, Mr. Mike Lopez (RIP), he died on March 6, 2006 from a wicked brain tumor, the same variety that took my mother-in-law. The dreaded Glioblastoma Multiforme.

As a family….it will rock your world, and not in a good way. If anything good can be said about this tumor, is that it’s swift.

Now, back to Michael. A good man. Crazy about his wife and kids. A guitar talent. Modest. Funny. A word smith, master of trivia and bad puns. We miss you and our heart go out to Donna and the kids.

Sad to hear that Bradley Delp, lead singer of Boston passed. They were planning to tour this summer, and I’ve always regretted that I didn’t go see them in B-town a couple of years ago.

Dirtsister admires the discipline it takes to sit down and write. This is blather, and it’s an effort to crank it out. I admire the tales of writers and journalists who lugged around or rented typewriters back in the day. Can’t relate to today’s writers who still prefer the typewriter.

Today’s tip: Fill out your donor consent form and save some lives.