The passing of Steve Jobs is an important moment to mark. Jobs was someone obsessed with the user experience, quality, innovation, and excellence. Apparently unconcerned about the opinions of most everybody, Jobs wasn't overwhelmed about the daily pursuits of most CEOs, in fact, his notable lack of fear of failure, reliance on his own instincts, and his insistence on perfecton as he defined it, enabled his companies to market products no one had ever envisioned. Of particular interest to those of us involved in pre need sales was his marketing all of his products for what they do, not for what they are. For example, the last 15 years of P.C. sales have been advertised based on their latest chip number, amount of gigawhats and mega whatevers. The biggest, fastest, computer for the least amount of money were the biggest sellers. All this has accomplished is driving down prices and making the computer a mere commodity with no unique selling proposition. Jobs was different. As a marketer, you could barely find the stats behind one of his offerings. When the latest Macbook Air came out I tried to figure out how big and fast it was by looking up the technical specs. I couldn't find them all and I am pretty good searcher. What I could find was a bunch of things that the Air would do for me like, take it anywhere in stead of how light it was, use it anywhere instead of a backlit keyboard, instant use instead of a complicated explanation about the solid state hard drive, and so forth. Remember the IPOD ads. You didn't hear alot about how many songs it stored but rather how cool it was to dance around with the white headphones sneaking out of your hooded sweatshirt. Apple products are all about what they do for you not what they are. Similarly, thats what pre need sales are all about. We can't sell a 3 x 8 piece of dirt, a concrete chamber, a wooden capsule, or a body filled with noxious chemicals. We can only provide piece of mind, ease of payment, the loving experience of two people choosing together instead of one guessing what the other would have wanted. Otherwise, everything we have would simply be... well a commodity just like the other guys.

Author's note: I have recently acquired a nice stack of marketing and business books with the intention of reviewing them here on a semi-regular basis. I will not rate each book as good or bad; rather, I intend to give an overview of what the reader will find and then pull out one lesson or principle to discuss more in-depth.

For the first installment, I've selected Guy Kawasaki's "Enchantment." The timing is no coincidence, as Guy is speaking on this very topic at our Annual Convention next week and part of my job as director of communications is to promote the heck out of that event. (That's what is known as "immediate and complete disclosure" and can be found on page 30 in the book in a section on "How to Achieve Trustworthiness." Guy would be proud, I'm sure.) "Enchantment" will not be in stores until March 8--which BTW is just in time for Guy's book sale and signing at the Convention!--but Guy was kind enough to send me a preview copy. And so, without further ado:

In "Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions," Guy Kawasaki offers us advice on how to enchant others--customers, prospects, employees, bosses and anyone whose hearts, minds or actions we may wish to change. From simple advice on how to smile and dress to complex explanations of how to make the best use of push and pull technologies, the book offers dozens of practical ideas on how individuals and companies can become more enchanting.

At the end of each chapter are personal stories of enchantment from everyday people. From the honeymooner who was enchanted by above-and-beyond service at a Disney hotel to the skeptic who was enchanted by a church service to a store manager who was enchanted by a dedicated temp, these stories show that anyone, anywhere, anytime can make a real difference and a lasting impression.

Overcoming Resistance by Finding a Way to Agree

One example of how to enchant others is to "Find a Way to Agree." This technique is particularly important, according to Kawasaki, when we face resistance. Finding a way to agree makes us more likeable and it gives us a foothold, however small, from which we can build a relationship. Kawasaki offers five methods for finding a way to agree that are particularly useful for those attempting a sale or other negotiation:

• Get personal. Learn about your prospect's interests and hobbies. What do you have in common?
• Get professional. Same principle. Research your prospect's work history and business network. What skills, experience or business associates do you have in common?
• Harmonize objections. Someone says your prices are too high? Explain how your firm offers a better value and more services than the low-cost provider down the street.
• Ask "What if ...?" Be flexible, or at least explore how your prospect's opinion might differ if you could change something. The prospect doesn't want "a lot of fuss"? What if ... we hold a simple service followed by coffee and finger foods right here in our hospitality lounge?
• Move the window. This is based on the Overton theory, which holds that there is a political "window," or range of policies, people will accept: unthinkable/radical/acceptable/sensible/popular. So if you start out proposing something unthinkable, something previously deemed radical might become acceptable. Perhaps the proposal to construct an individual mausoleum is beyond your prospect's means and desires, but introducing that option might make a family burial estate seem entirely reasonable. You've moved the prospect's window.

Finding ways to agree is just one of many methods for enchantment found in the book. In a profession such as cemetery and funeral service, where building rapport and relationships is so important, Kawasaki's advice points the way toward genuine, powerful, enduring connections.

We are embedded in funerals and burials in this industry.  At times, the reality of a death may be unintentionally diluted unless we are personally affected.  When death personally affects me, the snap back into the reality of death is powerful and I can't help but to ponder the importance of this business. 

There was a sudden death in our community of an owner of a popular bicycle store, Jeff, who was very active in the cycling world.  He died doing what he loved - cycling - and it was an unfortunate, tragic accident.  This morning, at the end of a spinning class with other active cyclists in our area, I heard the instructor and an attendee talking about Jeff's funeral, which is being held this weekend.  The person in the class was commenting to the instructor about how RELIEVED she was that there was going to be a funeral mass for him.  RELIEVED... I felt is was an odd word to equate to her feelings about this death.  As they talked further, they both said how important it was that there was going to be a ceremony, in the form of a funeral, rather than nothing at all, or by the family doing something on their own.  Her relief was due to the fact that she needed to be surrounded by people who were celebrating this life and acknowledging the death.  I heard the word "closure" from both of them and didn't hear much more.  Regardless of the sad circumstances, this conversation actually helped to start my day in a positive way because it reinforced to me that our society does need closure and it does need to cry and it does need to grieve and it does need a final resting place to be able to do this whenever the need arises in the future, too.  

By being so embedded in the industry, this need for closure can get forgotten by hearing from people - and the media - that they feel our industry isn't needed, is fading or even worse, is full of crooks.  I listen to people say that their kids won't come out to visit their grave, so why spend the money?  I read obituaries that indicate that "no services will be held" per the request of the deceased.  And sometimes, I fall into the cynicism of this mentality... thankfully only temporarily.  All it takes is one "thank you for everything you've done" or a conversation like I overheard this morning to remember that this is a business like no other. It takes very special people to help carry forward the message about how imperative a funeral, closure and a final resting place is for those who are left behind after a death takes place.  This applies to all deaths, not just the tragedies.  Life, not matter how grandiose or simple it may have been lived, needs to be acknowledged.  Please continue to drive this message to the families and communities you serve. 

I came across something interesting last week...funeral cakes. We use cakes to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, births, and now deaths? Is this a  good way to memorialize someone? Check out some of these elaborate funeral cakes. www.buzzfeed.com/melismashable/funeral-cakes

Want to see a movie with a positive depiction of funeral service? No, it's not "Eat Pray Love" or "The Expendables." At least not as far as I know, though I haven't seen either movie. It's "Get Low," which is harder to find, but has some star power (Robert Duvall, Bill Murray and Sissy Spacek) and a MUCH better Rotten Tomatoes rating than those blockbusters I just named--85  percent vs. 38 percent and 40 percent, respectively.

Don't trust movie critics? How about this: Brenda Clough, ICCFA office manager and book reviewer, and I saw the movie recently and highly recommend it. You can check out the reviews and find out if it's playing near you at Rotten Tomatoes, which also has some clips you can view:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/get_low/?critic=creamcrop

Here's a direct link to a clip of funeral home owner Frank Quinn (played by Bill Murray) explaining to employee Buddy why he should be the one to venture past the "No Trespassing" signs to knock on the door of a cantankerous and trigger-happy hermit (Robert Duval) with their funeral sales offer. Suffice it to say that Quinn is no Gary O'Sullivan:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/get_low/trailers/11116960

And here's a direct link to the clip of Quinn and Buddy reacting to the hermit's request for a "funeral party":

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/get_low/trailers/11116959

Here is Brenda's review:

GET LOW is that very rare movie with a funeral director as the hero.  Two, actually.  Frank Quinn, owner of Quinn Funeral Home, and his faithful assistant, Buddy, take on the ultimate in preneed planning.  They plan and hold a funeral for hermit Felix Bush, who hasn’t died yet.

The challenges of running a funeral home in a small Southern town during the Depression are gently funny when Bill Murray is the star.  As Quinn he seizes on the possible bonanza of a massive funeral and helps Bush achieve his goal: not only holding a big party, but resolving past secrets.  The younger FD Buddy makes frequent visits to the old recluse and puts in some stellar personal service, chauffeuring Bush around in the antique hearse and getting to know him.

The number of modern funeral features in this movie is quite notable.  The funeral director doesn’t just sell caskets but is the event planner and facilitator.  He buys old Bush clothing and shoes, a haircut, and when things get difficult he moves mountains to get the funeral to happen.  The actual event features not only food, drink, and a live mountain-music band, but a lottery drawing.  There’s even a pet cemetery! 

In all this is a very positive depiction of the industry, and does us proud.  As an ‘art’ film it probably might not see release in your local multiplex, but it’s sure to be available on DVD.

GET LOW, starring Robert Duvall, Bill Murray and Sissy Spacek, from Sony Classics.  Website www.sonyclassics.com/getlow/

I have always liked cemeteries.  I like the history, the architecture, the stories, the mysteries, the ambience, the beauty. Well, just the entire idea of the “resting place,” what the first Americans called “wyuca” meaning a “place of rest.” It is all the same idea across the globe, resting places for the dead, the necropolis.

Cemeteries are silent records.  The record is written in stone.  This is powerful life stuff—and we need to protect it, take care of it, watch over it, and be very understanding of this basic human instinct to do this.  Cemeteries are everywhere, and for a very good reason—cemeteries, among scant few other things, are places which clearly attest to everybody the fact of our mortality.  In fact, I would suggest that in America only two places are left that clearly attest to this unarguable, undeniable truth concerning the 100% death rate: the cemetery and the funeral home, or is it today politically correct to say funeral home first and cemetery second, or is it the other way around?  I know there are people out there who are sensitive about who gets first billing, so I don’t want to offend—just take your pick.

A couple of weekends ago I participated in the dedication at Woodland Cemetery in Dayton, Ohio, of their new Lookout Columbarium.  My longtime friend David FitzSimmons was the chief inspiration, planner and visionary of this project and, as usual, his plans were flawlessly executed.  It was a good day, and made me think about my conversation with a particular cemeterian who is a good friend of mine, but who during a phone conversation was mighty upset a couple of months ago.

The conversation we had revolved around his aggravation with families in “his” cemetery wanting, of all insults, to place votive lights on their loved one’s grave.  He called me for a listening ear, and most everybody knows I have huge ears and can accommodate a lot of information when others are talking, and my buddy wanted to talk.

In a nutshell this issue of votive lights had provoked him in a big way.  His complaints were both situational and practical, but also political and theological.  He was upset and he seemed to think he was running into a brick wall—the decedent’s family liked votive lights and they wanted to put them on their loved one’s grave, and that was precisely what they were doing.  According to my buddy, votive lights were placed everywhere throughout the cemetery, literally hundreds of them, however as the conversation progressed this number inflated to thousands of votive lights – all over the place, lights shining throughout the night, people praying all the time, walking around the cemetery, staying way too long, and not reading the great big sign at the front entrance which explicitly forbade the use of votive lights and many other things to boot.  The family was just driving him nuts, and while he tried to pass edict after cemetery edict, the family was just were not listening to him. They ignored him, he felt powerless, and he was mad as the devil.

Our conversation did nothing to stem the tide of his annoyance with votive lights—nothing.  We solved nothing in our conversation.  The family kept on brining votive candles, they kept on showing up to visit graves, and basically they were causing the management and maintenance staff one headache after another, day after day.

I felt for my buddy. I truly did.  People were an irritant to him and they were all over the place and he had to deal with them hourly.  It was truly a predicament.

After this phone call, which I did really nothing to help, I started to remember of all things my last trip to England—it was my honeymoon—just a year ago in June.  What always impressed me about my trips to Europe was my consistent observation of the location of the centrality of the church building in almost every community. The church was always in the center of town, in the center of life’s activities.

I like visiting old churches as much as I like visiting cemeteries.  In fact, I get the same feeling with both.

Every church I visited in England on my honeymoon, every one of them had votive candles prominently displayed, which one may light, and pray.  In fact I have been struck how candles and prayers seem to always go hand in hand.

I have concluded that just the small, little, tiny example of votive lights in a cemetery or in a church is a good thing and we ought to be patient and understanding of this one tiny example of mourning, religiosity and the attempts of human beings to connect with something that is beyond mere biology concerning the whys and wherefores of life.

I think after reflecting on the England experience that the people in my buddy’s cemetery are lighting votive lights because it makes them feel better, and in the end can we argue with this?  Yes we can, because my buddy argued with the family’s instinct to memorialize, ritualize, and express emotion for a couple of hours on the phone and as much as I like him, he is truly losing the battle.

Some will, of course, scoff at my very simple idea of how important little votive lights are really a terrible minor example, but I would like to suggest that, just as with Samson’s locks, sources of great strength in life often come to us from unexpected places. 

Votive lights might be a good example of strength coming from an unexpected source, which goes way beyond grass mowing, schedules, rules, regulations and the like—as important as those concerns are.   I am not unmindful that we need management to maintain a level of order, but I want to suggest that in the world of the dead there is truly more going on here than day to day management concerns.

Votive lights I believe are one living example of how people use the deeper meaning of the cemetery to connect with something larger than us.  Certainly there are many other larger more impressive examples, but votive lights will suffice for this purpose.

Since most religions light candles on the altars, it is clear that they do not consider doing it a superstitious act.  Votive candles express people’s faith and teach us about things that we cannot see or comprehend easily, and I know of few if any life challenges where faith and teaching are more important than when someone we love dies.  People kneel in cemeteries, pray in cemeteries, light candles in cemeteries, and they have been doing so for over 60,000 years. Why?  Because it works!  It helps people embrace the larger than life issues that they have to confront.  It goes beyond mere words and language, for always when words fail people turn to ritual, and lighting candles in a cemetery is truly a ritual in its very essence.

Lighting one simple votive candle at a grave is fraught with meaning and I have always found it a growth incentive to explore the meaning of activities, particularly activities that annoy me similar to my buddy who had gotten mighty provoked with people using these little candles.

Votive candles symbolize light and throughout religious thinking “light” is associated with growth, guidance, healing and finding new life.  How many times have we heard these phrases in times of crisis “Follow the light,” or “There is a light at the end of the tunnel.” 

The votive candle eventually burns down then burns out, and this is a symbol of how we use our time, metaphorically in time our life candle burns down and then burns out. 

As the votive candle burns it is a symbol that life goes on, and that when we leave the cemetery the candle is still burning, we know it, possibly we are the only person who knows this, but regardless we have to face life outside the gates of the cemetery.

Of course I probably am wrong about the connection between people and the issue of death and the meaning which is symbolized by the cemetery and funeral home.  I am so often times wrong.  Some people, as my buddy did on the phone, will argue with great vigor that such “nonsense” activities are in reality pagan, immature, and unsophisticated and should be eliminated or really tightly controlled.   No doubt he has a point.

However, during my conversation with him my mind wandered and I remembered, of all people, Oliver Cromwell who when he took power literally declared war on color, beauty, statues, candles and other such “nonsense” items in England . Oliver did not want people to express emotions, except maybe fear, but that was about it.  My buddy is certainly not alone in his frustration with people. They can be a bloody nuisance at times, and add votive candles to the mix and watch out.

When I spoke at the Woodland Columbarium dedication I saw many little small tiny examples of people trying in Dayton, Ohio, to connect with, for lack of a better phrase, “the other world.”  Everywhere were little items of memorialization scattered throughout the cemetery.  Little scripts of paper, ribbons tied in various fashions, toys, dolls, flags prominently displayed on many graves, and I believe an even saw a votive candle.  It appeared that creative memorialization was alive and thriving on the grounds of this really old and historic cemetery.

What I have tried to share is probably a terribly minor observation; just a small recommendation.  I mean in this one writing I have traveled to England, and back to Dayton, Ohio, to every cemetery I have ever visited and I have even resurrected old dusty Oliver Cromwell.  I confess, and it is true my personal observations about people’s need to connect with death rank in the minor leagues and I apologize for my shortcomings.

However, to the defense of my position of the importance of votive lights (which really symbolize our built in need to memorialize), I would offer my conclusion that civilization itself is expressed and taught in little things like kneeling, lighting a candle or removing one’s hat, or caring for flowers in a garden, or little children saying grace.  It is the little things that express and teach the big things.  Votive lights teach big things.

Anyway that’s one old undertaker’s opinion.
 

Throughout my career one of the main aspects of funeral service that attracted me was the innate gentleness that is at the core of this great profession.  Funeral service has a gentleness that is an essential part of what makes funeral service what it is.

Certainly I have encountered rough and tumble funeral directors who on the surface have a bark and a scowl, but in most every case in the end these “grumpy” funeral directors have a true heart of gold, and as the ancient saying goes, “the bark is much worse than the bite.”

I worked for a few of these “grumpy” “crabby” old undertakers, and at the time they scared the devil out of me, but over the years I grew to understand that surface appearances are usually not a good assessment of what is in another human being’s character and soul.

It has struck me as both interesting and sad that today the vision of people being gentle and kind, or understanding and generous in business, or in the process of struggling through life’s vicissitudes and ambitions, is seen as weakness, or folly, or old-fashioned, and there are quite a few naysayers in the world who laugh at such concepts and attempt to behave as another “Donald Trump” on their own reality TV program.

I like the gentle, generous, giving side of life.  That is why I always admired funeral directors, and no matter what the naysayers say – and they have their story to tell to be sure – I have just always liked funeral service.  To be sure those critical naysayers are out there and in today’s climate of tearing people down instead of building people up, the naysayers do have an audience. So be it. It is presently the way of the world it appears, but it probably won’t always be the way of the world - at least I hope not.

Here is what I am talking about.  Years ago, as I recently mentioned in another post, when I worked in Wyoming my boss was the county coroner.  My boss was a good man, but he was touchy most times, and his wife could whip him up into a literal lather of frenzy when she took a liking to.  The coroner’s position was for my boss literally protected territory, and when the coroner’s election would eventually come around both sides would hunker down and form their battalions and the declaration of coroner’s war would ensue.  However to his credit, I guess, my boss had held onto the coroner’s position for years.

On a regular day my boss would snap at me about something; I was always screwing something up.  It really didn’t matter what it was, he would just snap.  If his wife was within hearing distance she always had something to add to fuel the fire under my ***, and her comments would set him off once again, and Todd being the easiest target would get shot at once again, and many times my boss and his wife took deadly aim.  Eventually I was shot at and hit so many times that I started taking comfort in the thought of St. Sebastian who said, wisely, “when you are shot with seventeen arrows, the eighteenth one does not hurt much.”  That was basically my relationship with my boss and his wife – daily archery practice. They had the bow and arrows and possessed dead-eye aim, and I was the target.

I concluded that my boss was just a finicky, prickly, moody human being and I did not like him.  Until we received a coroner’s call one afternoon.  Then everything changed.  The other point I need to make is that I was 22 years old when this happened, and while I am sure that everybody else in the world was mature and insightful and judicious and wise at 22 – but Todd was NOT!

It was summer in Cheyenne, and really Cheyenne and the whole area of Southwestern Wyoming is beautiful. I believe Wyoming has to have the bluest skies I have ever seen in my life, and the sky just goes on and on, neverending beauty.

It was a beautiful summer day.  School was out and kids were playing outside everywhere.

There was an area in Cheyenne south of the downtown that was in truth, at this time anyway, a pretty rough area.  It was deprived both socially and economically, and it was also violent.  Most calls we received in this unfortunate section of town usually were of a highly complicated nature.  Any call of course has this potential, but sadly the areas affected by poverty and urban plight got more than their share of sadness and grief – it seems it is the way of the world.

Mid afternoon the sheriff called and asked that we respond to a back lot in this particular area of the city.  The sheriff also requested two or three vehicles because five people had been discovered dead.

Not much more information was forthcoming, or if it was my boss did not tell anybody else about it.  Off we went, and in short order we arrived at the scene.

The vacant lot was more like a dump ground.  Junk was everywhere.  The lot was a distance off the beaten track and it was evident that many people just decided to secretly dump their used anything in this area.  You name the piece of junk and it was probably somewhere in this vacant lot.

I was clueless as to what had happened, but I found out quickly.  The Sheriff was at the bottom of a small hill and was standing in the middle of a bunch or abandoned refrigerators and he was waving at us.

My boss told the rest of us to stay with the vehicles and he proceeded down the hill.  I could not exactly see what was going on, but when my boss returned he was crying.  I had never seen him cry.  He had made me cry often enough, but as far as the “rock” (that was our nickname for him) crying, well I was stunned.  I just looked at him and he composed himself enough to tell us to get the cots out and follow him down the small hill.

As we walked down the small hill this one particular refrigerator had its back side to us, and the sheriff was standing in front and the look on his face was one of despair and hopelessness.  The county sheriff was a real tough fellow, but today he looked as if somebody had just shot his favorite dog.

As I walked around to the front of the refrigerator I looked inside and just froze. I had never, nor have I since (this was 1974) ever seen anything like what I witnessed at that moment.

Huddled inside the refrigerator were five, yes folks, five small children.  The sheriff concluded that the five little ones were goofing and playing around and decided it would be fun to hide inside the refrigerator and they all stuffed themselves in the appliance and somehow, someway the door shut, and shut tight – shut permanently.

This refrigerator and many of the others in that vacant lot were made before magnetic door seals, and when the steel door lock bolted shut in these particular models there was no way to open the door from the inside.  Also, not one of these refrigerators which had been dumped and abandoned had had its front door removed for simple safety purposes.  The owners of the refrigerators just dumped the appliances, left the doors on and took off thinking nothing catastrophic would happen, but catastrophe is the word to describe what did end up happening.

Interestingly, another group of schoolchildren who were roaming around this dumping grounds were the ones who opened the shut refrigerator just by pure chance and discovered the gruesome and pathetic sight.

By this time the local media was on the scene, and that evening the deaths of these five children were the major story for all the new broadcasts – the story even made the television reports out of Denve, 100 miles away.  The community was stunned, and in short order politicians swept in and actually did some good, for in the next legislative session a state law was passed making it a punishable crime to abandon a refrigerator with the front door still attached.

We were asked to bury three of the five children, and my opinion of my boss changed almost overnight.

I observed him throughout the funeral experience from beginning to end, and frankly he was a marvel to behold.  I saw gentleness, compassion, caring, concern and above all professional understanding that I just didn’t think any person was capable of, and up to this time I never would have suspected my “grumpy” boss possessed such humanness.  Of course since that time I have seen this combination thousands upon thousands of times in and from funeral directors across the globe. 

My boss took care of this family, and I mean he took care of them.  He was attentive without being overbearing, he was helpful but not overly intrusive, he was competent but not solemn, he was spiritual but not overly religious, he was cordial but certainly not intimate, he was ready to help but not overbearing, and he was gentle while being himself.  Today I still warm to the memory of his abilities – and I thought he was a grump!  Boy was I wrong!

I believe that funeral directors, thousands of them, have this delicate skill. They balance this skill very well, and they use it constantly – and that my friends is a good thing.  Yes, we have individuals who knock us, criticize us; yes we make mistakes, errors in judgment.  Certainly these are complicated time to be gentle in – no reality TV program is going to be centered around people being nice and respectful to each other – but funeral directors are nice and respectful, even the ones whose bark is loud and intimidating and causes people to tremble. 

I concluded long ago that I was wrong about my loud, intimidating boss who did have the ability to make me tremble.  I learned that as I tried to imitate him he actually stopped barking at me so much. Maybe there is a growing up lesson in this story – who knows?  However my opinion of his wife ... well, that is for another time ....

Anyway that’s one old undertaker’s opinion. TVB

In the mid 1970s I worked for a couple of years in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  A few people in funeral service still remember my presence out West, but this was so long ago that the State Board of Embalmers in Wyoming had actually lost and forgotten that I had been licensed in that wonderful state.  My record of licensure was so old that the state had purged the files and when I needed verification a few years ago they did not have a clue who I was, which happens all the time.  I got it straightened out, and my license number for any funeral sleuth out there is #377.

My employer was also the County Coroner.  Back in the time I am writing about funeral directors across Wyoming ran for the County Coroner’s office.  I believe the system has changed in a few Wyoming counties, but in the 1970s it was almost a community expectation that the local funeral director or one of the local funeral directors would be the County Coroner.

This happened during the summer of 1973 and a funeral director from Laramie, Wyoming wanted to go on vacation with his wife for a week and he needed a rent-a-funeral-director and I was selected to temporarily move into his really nice home for a week and watch the business.  This funeral director was also the County Coroner, and hence I was temporarily deputized as the County Coroner in conjunction with a County Judge who would be really in charge if anything would happen.  I was not “Quincy” in any stretch of the imagination.

As this Laramie funeral director and his wife drove off for their fun week, I was standing in their driveway waving and he left me with these prophetic words, “Todd, don’t worry, we have been real slow; nothing will happen.”  I was so young and new to funeral service that I actually believed him.  Youth is wasted on the young.

For three days nothing happened.  It was organized boredom. I mowed the grass, vacuumed the carpet, washed the coach three times in the same day, took naps, watched TV (I enjoyed the Price Is Right), played with the organ in the chapel, dusted off embalming fluid bottles, counted the supply of calendars, washed the coach again, talked to myself in the office, answered possibly three phone calls, cleaned the whitewalls of the coach, swept the sidewalks, counted trocar tips, cleaned lip brushes with DryWash and basically kept busy without having any funerals. 

This funeral director’s wife was a lovely person and she had stocked the freezer with steaks, really nice steaks.  I grilled out by myself, watched TV by myself, and it was actually like a little vacation.

The vacation ends

At 7 a.m. the funeral home phone rang and it was the County Judge announcing to me that the Wyoming State Police had found two teenage auto fatalities at the bottom of a canyon about 20 miles northeast of Laramie.  He gave me instructions and said he would meet me at the scene.  He sounded might provoked.

In forty minutes I was at the scene of the crash.  It looked like two young chaps had been traveling at a fast speed, missed a hairpin curve and off the road they went airborne. Gravity quickly pulled the car and them to the bottom of a deep narrow canyon.  The crash was horrific.  One young lad was thrown from the vehicle and the other lad sat in the driver’s seat.  Both boys were dead, no question.

The Wyoming State Police did their investigations and concluded that it was a open and shut case; no foul play was involved and the officers (who were really professional and nice) gave permission to remove the boys from the canyon.  The County Judge, who clearly was not yet awake, looked at me and said, “Go ahead.”  I had never removed a dead body from a canyon before. I had no heavy equipment, but with the help of a couple of the law officers, we succeeded in getting both bodies up on the road, and eventually into my vehicle.

The bodies were identified and the officers looked at the County Judge and said “You need to go notify the next of kin about these deaths.”  The County Judge in turn looked at me and said “You need to go notify the next of kin about these deaths.”  It was really my first experience with the popular human concept of “professionally passing the buck.”

The Wyoming State Police were interested in wrapping things up, and the County Judge was interested in going back to bed – anyway that is how he impressed (or depressed) me.

The law officers gave me the addresses from the drivers licenses and the County Judge drove off in his car, as did the police in their cruisers.  I walked back to my vehicle with two dead boys in the back and two addresses and drove by myself back into Laramie.  Both families lived in Laramie.

The Coroner’s Office was in the funeral home I was temporarily watching over, so I took both bodies back to the funeral home and placed them in the preparation room and walked back to the office and sat down.  I did not know what to do.  They did not cover this situation in Mortuary College.  First I thought of phoning, but my heart told me that would not be right.

It was by now 10 a.m. and Laramie was full of morning activities.  I looked at the addresses, found a map and located where the two families lived, and still sat in my chair.  Truth is, I was terrified.  I was only in my early 20s, still a kid in many respects, and was faced with a situation that I never dreamed in my life would happen. I was also slow upstairs, because when I was made a temporary Deputy County Coroner what in the devil did I think might possibly happen?  I was never the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Just as I was ready to leave to go see the first family the phone rang.  It was a Roman Catholic priest; one of the fatalities was a member of his parish and somehow he had heard about the accident and volunteered to go and tell the bereaved family, who he knew very well, what had happened.  He asked me if that would be all right? ALL RIGHT?  Certainly that would be fine.  To this day I don’t know if this was legal, but at the time I didn’t care.  The priest was a godsend.  I have often looked back at this intervention. We did not have any beepers, voice mail, cell phones or anything else offering immediate contact, so if I had left one minute earlier I would have missed the priest’s phone call. 

However I received no such rescuing from notifying the other bereaved family; I was on my own.  I remember driving up in front of the house. I rechecked the address; I had the right place. Then I drove around the block about ten times.  I felt a pit in my stomach, I was lightheaded, and I wanted to run back to Cheyenne.  That however was not possible. This was hardball, so I parked the car, got out, walked up the front steps and rang the doorbell. 

A nice looking woman maybe about 35 years old opened the door.  I stood there, a total stranger, and the following events were probably not handled properly, most anybody could have done better. Trust me, I have had many people offer me suggestions on what I should or could or would have done when I tell them this story, but I was on my own and I was making it up as I went.

The woman, who was the deceased young boy’s mother, looked at me and she knew immediately that something had happened.  She asked, “Who is hurt?”  I just responded by saying, “I am Todd Van Beck, and I am with the Coroner’s office.”  The mother then responded with, “Who is hurt; is it my son or husband?”  Then out it came, “Mrs. _____, your son ______ was killed this morning.”  The mother looked at me and said, “How bad is it?” 

Let’s freeze this frame for a moment.  Now after many years of teaching psychology of grief I can recognize this mother’s reaction as pure denial, and totally understandable denial.  Denial is a powerful emotion that protects our psyches from taking in horrible information all at once, which would certainly be detrimental and overwhelming.  Denial is like a psychological filter, a natural neurological function which allows the person to take in terrible news in small bites.  The mother certainly heard the words “coroner” and the word “killed,” – and we all rationally know that the County Coroner rarely if ever makes official social calls, and what “killed” means. 

In about fifteen minutes after a cycle of physiological responses such as sighing, shaking, weakness, and silence except for some quiet weeping, she looked at me and said “Is my boy really dead?”  “Yes he is, I am so sorry.”  Then she looked at me and said “My husband is at work in the mine and we are in the middle of getting divorced.”  I just sat there in silence.  I felt so sorry for her.

Just by accident and not by any sophisticated design I asked her if I could get a neighbor to come in and stay with her.  She told me the name and I walked over and asked the neighbor if she could come over, and the neighbor was as shaken and stunned as the mother, but at least the mother now had someone she knew instead of me, a total stranger, with her.

The mother instructed that the funeral home I was watching over was to handle the funeral and with that information I took my leave.  The family came in later to make the arrangements, the funeral was taken care of in a professional manner, and the young lad was buried.

What I remember most about this was the utter relief, anxiety, confusion, nervousness, insecurity, and general tension I felt when I walked back to the car.  I was not in a hurry to get out, but at the same time I knew that my life would never, ever be the same.  I felt a myriad of emotions.  I welled up and when I had gotten far enough from the house, I just broke down (I have always been a blub) and sat in the car alone weeping.  The entire incident simply shook me to the core, which looking back, it should have.

I never found out the fate of the people involved.  Did they get divorced? I don’t know.  How did life go for them after I returned to Cheyenne? I don’t know.  Eventually I moved back to Iowa, then into mortuary education, but I have never forgotten this dramatic and  traumatic event and the people involved.

It made me a more sensitive funeral director, and it certainly gave an additional depth to my later lecturing and teaching.

Most everybody in our great profession can share similar experiences; it is just a part of the environment. I certainly did not handle it properly, because I was just making it up as I went, and for many years to come when I looked back I chastised myself by thinking that I ought to have said this, or I could have said that – but in the end I did not do any of that. I just stumbled through the situation as I have done with many other life events.

In the end, over the veil of time this tough experience taught me that misery lies across the face of the earth. There is enough misery to go around for everybody. It taught me that those in our profession cannot easily pick and choose what aspects of funeral service we are interested in and what aspects of funeral service we are not interested in. In the end, death is an equal opportunity employer. Anything can happen anywhere, and at anytime. 

I did learn one firm inviolable lesson however: When a funeral director tells you that they have not been busy, and that probably nothing is going to happen, my suggestion is that we not take those words too much to heart.

Anyway that’s one old undertaker’s opinion. TVB 

In 1992 I published an article in one of the professional journals entitled “The History of the Funeral home Ambulance Service.”  Actually it was one of the few attempts I have done at writing that caught some attention, well attention from veteran funeral directors anyway.

Over my years of writing and doing seminars I have often asked funeral director groups how many of the attendees worked on the funeral home ambulance service.  Thirty years ago many hands went up, and those who raised their hands were also shaking their heads, and rolling their eyes.  The baby funeral directors in the group had no clue as to the veteran’s reaction when the subject of the ambulance service came up.  The baby funeral directors would just look bewildered, and some even confessed to me later that they were totally unaware that funeral homes even operated ambulance services.  Such is the case of generational disconnect.

However today when I ask the question of funeral director groups about operating the ambulance service the number of hands that get raised has clearly dwindled, but still the ones that do raise their hands (they all look a lot like me - you know, white hair, etc.) still shake their heads, and roll their eyes, and still the baby funeral directors just sit seemingly baffled by what this old grumpy undertaker (meaning me) is talking about.

For some this blog item will be going down memory lane.  For others it will probably sound like total science fiction – a story or stories that Todd just pulled out of thin air – but trust me, my friends, what I am about to recollect is NOT science fiction, in fact the ambulance service was for many years as an entrenched a part of the typical American funeral home as were embalming, caskets, funeral vehicles, and funerals!

From the mid 1960s to the mid 1980s I was involved with ambulance service, and our ambulance service WAS NOT simply invalid transportation (as it used to be called).  Our ambulance service was heavy duty, emergency, day and night ambulance service, and as strange as this sounds in 2010 with paramedics and basically moving emergency rooms, in the period of time I am talking about our ambulances were state of the art.

In fact when I decided to become a funeral director I just took it as a matter of course, without even thinking about it, that the ambulance service was a part of the scene, it was part of the career, and I found out quickly that it was a big part of the career.

I need to explain something quickly concerning my use of the term “state of the art” in reference to the funeral home ambulance service.  The funeral home ambulance service was indeed “state of the art” in say 1966, but not by today’s standards.  The basic qualifications to operate the ambulance were nothing.  Some, like me, had advanced first aid – but folks that was it.  The emergency medical technician program was still a decade away when I started on the ambulance.

State of the art in funeral home ambulance service was basically simple.  The impact of the idea of state of the art was actually connected with the appearance of the ambulance itself, and the appearance and the type of vehicles used as funeral home ambulances were literally all over the map.  There were no minimum standards, those were entirely up to the owner of the funeral home and ambulance.

The first ambulance I drove and worked on was a great 1959 Miller-Meteor, and it was a tank.  The second was simply a converted station wagon.  Then I worked on a 1960 Oldsmobile combination (which served as both a funeral coach and ambulance) and then in Boston I drove some really nifty Cadillacs.  

I drove ambulances out in western Nebraska, in the city of Omaha, in rural Iowa, and in the city of Boston.  I worked for the last funeral home in the metro area of Boston to operate an ambulance service when I was a student at the New England Institute, and what an experience that was – driving a ambulance through the streets of Beantown.  WOW!!!!!

In reality our ambulance care for the patients was a kind of “load and go” approach.  We would often times advertize quite boldly “FULLY EQUIPMENT EMERGENCY AMBULANCE SERVICE – 24 HOURS DAY OR NIGHT – OXYGEN EQUIPPED – TWO-WAY RADIO.”  The advertisements read well and sounded great.  We indeed looked grand and great going down the street, because no matter the type of ambulance we had, we had most every emergency light and siren that had ever been invented on those vehicles.  Funeral home ambulances were often times flashy, fast, impressive and above all loud, really loud.

For a young man it was a dream job come true.

However the truth is that our “Fully Equipped Emergency Ambulance” was really not that fully equipped.  Here is what I remember about being fully equipped; we usually had a couple of towels, some ace bandages and 4 x 4 gauze pads, a stretcher, some old Timmons splints (which needed to be seen to be believed – I always felt sorry for people with broken bones), and a tank of oxygen – sometimes full, sometimes half full, sometimes . . . . . . . . . .  Oh, yes, and we had a little plastic bowl called an “emesis basin,” which we were supposed to use when people were vomiting.  The emesis basins, anyway the ones we had, were very small and my patients when I was sitting in the back of the ambulance usually missed the basin totally and threw up on me.

As I mentioned, in the mid 1960s we knew no different, and while by today’s standards people laugh at the idea of a funeral home running the ambulance service let alone at our equipment and how we responded and took care of call, I believe that laughter is really out of ignorance on their part. They really don’t know what they are talking about, and trust me, WE TOOK THE AMBULANCE SERVICE VERY SERIOUSLY.

There were no pagers, no beepers, no answering services, no voice mail, no nothing except for the land line funeral home phone which had to be attended to in person twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year.

I believe the Federal Wage and Hour Act had been passed and was law of the land in the mid 1960s, but you would never have had inkling that there was even a concept like Wage and Hour in the funeral home world.  We were on call constantly.  Days off?  What are days off??? Who ever heard of such a ridiculous idea – days off?

Add to this that in every funeral home I worked in or even the ones I owned, the ambulance calls always were higher in number than the funeral calls.  Always.  Too often people that were just as ill at 2:00 in the afternoon waited to call the ambulance until 2:00 in the morning.  There is something about the sun going down and the increase in ambulance calls.  Night work was where the action was – most always.

When you operate an ambulance you see the heights of the human spirit, but you also see the utter bottom of human depravity.  Time and space do not allow me to even touch on some of the rawest of the raw calls, and in today’s cultural sensitivities some of my case memories would be offensive – I can’t even tell my family about the real rough ones, but on this tender subject any veteran funeral director who operated the ambulance service will know precisely what I am talking about.  We were in the thick of some of the most distasteful and stressful of human events in our community.

However the flip side of this was some of the most hilarious things happened to me on the ambulance.  A funny story here is appropriate.  When I was a student in Boston we transported an old lady from Don Orione Nursing Home in East Boston to Massachusetts General Hospital.  We hauled her back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.  This lady was so small and meek and she sounded like a faint little mouse when she would talk – she was just a sweetheart, we liked her very much.  Every time we picked her up she would say over and over again “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me.”  I always assured her that we would not hurt her and off we would go to the Mass General.  Her name was May.

One afternoon we were called to haul her back to Don Orione, so into Boston we went and put her on the cot.  As we were leaving the ambulance entrance area, before we made it out into the parking lot it started to rain and rain hard, just a down pour, raining cats and dogs, a monsoon in Boston.  Our standard operating procedure in rain like that was to take the blanket and cover the patients head and make a run for the ambulance.

I learned over to her and said “May, I am going to cover your head with this blanket, so you won’t get wet – it’s raining really badly.”  May replied “What did you say?”  So I go through the plan one more time.  I take the blanket and cover May’s head, but honestly it was raining so hard that my associate and I did not want to get soaked so we decided to wait “just a little bit” till it lightened up.  Not a good idea, and there good old May lay her head covered with the blanket and not saying one word.

In a short time a little crowd of people had gathered who also were leaving the hospital, but they too decided to wait a little bit for the rain to let up.  As I looked around at this little crowd it was evident that everybody thought we had a corpse under the blanket, because no one was saying a word, everyone was somber and reverent and all this time the rain just got worse and worse.

It might have been ten minutes that our little group of people afraid to go out into the rain were all standing there, and I remember one woman who was holding a vase of flowers looked over at me and gave me that real sympathetic smile which is always a nonverbal communication that she wanted us to know that she knew we were removing a dead person.  

Out of nowhere, I mean out of nowhere, we all hear this little meek voice said from under the blanket “I think I am going to suffocate.”  It was May talking under the blanket.

It scared the b’jesus out of the entire group waiting for the rain to lighten up, and the nice lady who had sympathetically smiled the moment before at me actually was startled so much that she dropped the vase of flowers and broken glass scattered all over the ambulance entrance.  I looked at my associate and gave the nod saying “let’s get the hell out of here” and rain storm or not off we went to the ambulance.  It must have been a bumpy ride for May.

I was laughing so hard that tears were running down my cheeks.

So friends, there you have a brief memory of the highs and lows of the funeral home ambulance service – I could and probably will write more on the subject.  It was the experience of a lifetime, and while we eventually had to get out of the service, which was the right thing to do, I look back today and would not change a thing about my experience.  The ambulance was a headache, a tension producer, and at times a literal nightmare, but it also was an opportunity for a young man to see the raw data of life, and realities of the human condition, and the ambulance stories make marvelous cocktail party chatter – people love the ambulance stories.  The ambulance service forced me to continue to grow up.

Maybe some of the readers can share their own memories of this significant chapter in funeral service history.  TVB

     Having only been a cemetarian for 18 months I am still in the learning stage of what exactly a cemetarian should do. When I say learning stage I don't mean to imply that you learn every thing quickly. I'm fairly certain I will be in the learning stage for years to come. I work for a family owned company which has four funeral homes within a 30 mile radius of each other. In 2008 they decided to get into the cemtery business and purchased a 28 acre cemetery that had been seized by the State of Louisiana Cemetery Board for mismanagement.  I was a retired police officer in our community, having retired with the rank of Major after 30 years in law enforcement. My attributes were organizational skills and knowing how to handle people who have problems. Of course this cemetery had a lot of problems. It has really been a wonderful experience for me and working for a company that wants everything done the righ way is a big help.

     The former owners of the cemetery left only paper trails of their management skills. We put every thing in computer files and that has helped to solve most of the problems.  With a little history out of the way let me get to the core subject of this post. Even though I am owned by one funeral home company, it did not take me long to realize that I actually provide a service to all the funeral homes in our area. Of course, most of the funeral directors knew me by name and reputation and that of course has helped. It also did not take me long to realize not only am I serving a family who has lost a loved one, but I am also serving the funeral director in charge of the service. The better I make him look in the eyes of the family he is serving the better he will make me look by guiding future business my way. I provide a service that is needed and I should bend over backwards to help all parties involved.

     So, what exactly does a cemetarian due during services at his cemetery? I do realize our primary function is to open and close the grave and provide set up, which includes tent, chairs and grass. We direct and park cars in the cemetery during services. We also provide water to the families during hot weather. What exactly is our function during the service and when should we approach families? Should we do it upon arrival? Should we do it after the service? Even though the service is being held in our cemtery, who exactly is in charge? Eeveryone should understand, this is not an ego problem, this is something I am just throughing out for discussion to see how other cemeteries operate and handle problems. 

I once had an out of state  funeral home bring a body up for a service and they hired a Lousiana funeral director to do the service. The body arrived at the cemetery before the funeral director and with the help of the driver and my employee's we took the casket out of the hearst and put it on the lowering device. The funeral director arrived a few minutes later and chastised me for moving the body before he arrived. Was this right or wrong? Should I have waited to move the casket?

I had a flower truck bring flowers to the cemetery before the poessession arrived. The flower truck had a funeral director in it, plus the delivery driver. The funeral director told the delivery driver to drive on the grass on the cemetery up to the grave site. The delivery driver told the funeral director I had said on previous occasions not to drive on the grass. They did anyway. So should I call and complain to the manager of the funeral home using our cemetery?

I know there's a fine line in dealing with human emotions and I'm certainly not one to make waves. I've always operated on the concept of common sense. Ok, now lets think this thing out and then make a decision. I would appreiate any discussion on this topic.

When I was a student in seminary – yes folks I went to seminary and actually graduated, the buzz word in the academic world of theology was this big impressive word – demythologization.  The meaning of demythologization is:  to rid of mythological elements in order to discover the underlying meaning.

Here is an example.  In seminary we had courses where the professor’s assignment in the class was to demythologize biblical legends – in other words take the stories in the Bible and rationally discover the underlying meaning – sounded good to me, at first.  For instance in a Old Testament course I took the professor was firm and unmoving that the story about the Egyptians chasing the children of Israel and in the end getting swallowed up by the Red Sea, was in reality nothing rationally nothing more than the topographical fact that the Red Sea is maybe a foot deep at anyone place and while the children of Israel could easily navigate the shallow waters on foot the Egyptian’s heavy and cumbersome chariots got stuck in the mud, and that my friend’s is a clear example of demythologization. It left me cold, but inquisitive. 

As you might well imagine a few students were angry as hell and some stomped out of the classroom.  This behavior however did not deter the professor and his assignment to knock down our religious “myths.”  I personally did not take him too seriously in fact I did not take much of the seminary experience too seriously – just to protect my own mental health.  You might well ask, “Why the hell did you even go?” Good question, and a quarter of a century after the experience I am still asking myself the same question – but that is fodder for another time.

Here is another example of demythologization.  When I was a child in every classroom in my school, from kindergarten to high school, in every classroom there were impressive portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  Nobody had to say a word.  Not one word, because the message was clear – these two men were terribly important, they were heroes.  I knew they were heroes even before I knew what a hero was such was the power and influence of the myth.

In the process of demythologization however heroes are made into antiheroes, for today we know that George Washington was human, made mistakes, owned human beings, and just was probably not as great as we thought he was.  Lord knows Lincoln has been demythologized, for people are still arguing and debating his life and legacy 140+ years after his untimely and unexpected death.  This stuff still leaves me cold, and not so inquisitive.

Make no mistake, demythologizing is in itself powerful, and make no mistake about it, demythologization has consequences and consequences for our profession.

What I found interesting in listening to theological professors taking apart biblical legends is that they did not replace our time honored thinking with any type of new replacements.  It left me cold.  It was like tearing a fence down before you understood why the fence was put up in the first place.  I much preferred the stories where the myths were alive with metaphor and meaning, that left me feeling warm inside, whether the myth was based in rational, logical fact or not.  Just made me feel good.

Certainly it appears to me that our culture yearns and continues to search for heroes.  However in these contemporary times heroes seem to be illusive prey, they seem to be well hidden, and I guess for good reason, because today if a person is deemed a hero I have observed that thousands of cynics, media pundits, editors, columnists, commentators, literally scramble to outdo each other in tearing down the hero myth to such an extent that the “hero” is reduced to being just like the rest of us.  However being just like the rest of us is in mythology, in the world of hidden silent truths is simply not true.  Also what is not true is that just because some talking head on CNN bashes and tears to pieces a “hero” does not mean that heroes and/or beliefs in stories/ legends and myths do not exist, in fact I believe they have a urgent need to flourish in this cynical, sterile, skeptical culture we live in.

I am not referring to politicians, or business executives, or bankers, or health insurance officials, who clearly have been demythologized. Here is what I am referring to.

The other night I was watching the political commentator Bill Maher on television.  As with any television person I am not enamored.  I liked and miss Walter Cronkite, but I also liked and miss Lawrence Welk, so there you have it, I am a nerd.

This night Bill Maher was on a diatribe against, and bashing into the earth of all people, now get this, SULLY SULLENBERGER.  No kidding, Mr. Maher was off like a shot tearing Mr. Sullenberger to shreds.  No stone was left unturned.  I was so stunned that I left the television running.

Mr. Maher took the myth of Mr. Sullenberger being a true American hero and said publically that he had had enough of listening and watching the honors which this pilot was receiving.  Now I am well aware that Mr. Maher has the right to voice his opinions, and I suspect he makes a decent living doing so, but I thought of something that another professor mine told me years ago.

THERE IS TRUTH IN MYTH.  THERE IS TRUTH IN MYTH – ALL MYTHS CONTAIN TRUTH.  

Let’s take Mr. Sullenberger for a moment.  Is it a little bit impressive that somebody could land a great big airplane safely in the middle of the Hudson River?  I mean folks he missed the George Washington Bridge, and the Lincoln Tunnel, and the Holland Tunnel and a whole lot of boats, and a side note HE MISSED MANHATTAN, NEW YORK.  Not one person was killed, not one.  So yes in the world of demythologization, my former theological professor would have claimed that probably any pilot (except for the crack pilots on Northwest who missed the airport by 150 miles) could have easily landed that plane. Yeh, sure.  Personally I think not, and while the hoopla around Mr. Sullenberger might have annoyed Mr. Maher, there is truth in the myth that Sully was and is a hero.  Not the entire truth, for he is a human being, but there is truth floating around in this legend, in this story about one pilot.

So what does all this have to do with funerals?  I believe from my travels and experiences that many people are demythologizing the dead and the funeral ritual.  They are demythologizing the rituals of the funeral ceremony.  They are demythologizing saying goodbye, and they are getting big time encouragement from the prototype “Bill Mahers” who today have a presence in our profession and who are talking about why people ought to demythologize death activities.

For centuries upon centuries, for over several millennia, human beings found the best way to have personalized death rituals were to incorporate the dead human body as best they could into these once in a lifetime activities.  I have often pondered how much more personal can any death ritual be than when a parent is in close in proximity to their dead child – where they can look, see, touch, caress the corpse?  Certainly this type of personalization is much more dramatic and much more tasking than possibly the dove release, but in heavy duty psychology the mantra and myth has been and still is that the toughest life experiences usually result in the greatest longtime growth in the neverending process of maturation.

However today demythologization has clearly taken place and gotten a strong foothold on the “myth” of the value of the corpse being essentially necessary.  In the process of demythologization the corpse has now been dubbed by the demythologizers as a “toxic pickle.”  People, many people, innocently respond to this demythologization of the dead because it seems easier, more environmentally friendly, more cool, more green.  However if my old professor is correct, THERE IS TRUTH IN MYTH.  So does a corpse possess truth?

I would like to suggest that the demythologizing of the dead, when some inherent truths about life exist in a dead person, is a slippery slope to travel.  Certainly the idea that a corpse contains truthful lessons about life is something that has to be looked for and discovered, but without time spent with a dead person in close proximity I would like to suggest that these truths about living life are missed or worse yet the significance of these truths about life for my own life are missed.  The significance of the event of someone dying is an integral part of the truth in the myth about the value of viewing the dead.

Somewhere in the myth that dealing with the dead is important, truths abound.  The first truth is that when I look at the shell of a dead person I am looking straight at previews of coming attractions for me, no getting around that truth – and today most certainly that truth in the myth can and appears to be a tough pill for many to swallow.  Second, looking at the shell of a dead person is the truth if allowed to sink in is the extremely valuable life lesson which is this:  I had better get off my brains and start living life – the myth possesses the truth concerning the urgency to live life.  Third, looking at a dead person possess the truth about the reverential and gentler side of life.  It is most always a time of reflection and discernment, both good and not so good thoughts, and this is a great truth for all of us, particularly in these dog eat dog times.  Fourth, looking at and participating in the myth of looking at dead people replaces the void created by demythologizing the dead into a rational, sterile, logical “toxic pickle” with something of deeper meaning and substance and which has been valid to the betterment of the human experience since time immemorial.

To demythologize simply for the sake of changing things, simply for the sake of change, has been proven time and again in history of humanity of going from nothing to nothing.  I am all for change, and try my best to embrace it, understand it, and change with the times.  However as a person who has been exposed to the down side of the process of demythologizing life into sterility, rationalizations, logic, and anti-heroism, and anti-legends I need to stop myself and say that myths surrounding life experience such as physical death hold deep seeded truths and it is up to me to discover them, and hold on to them, and to realize that life needs ongoing passion, beliefs, sentiments and this is most often discovered in the hidden truths which are found in all myth across the globe.

The ancient myth that having a dead body visible and present at death rituals is from this vantage point not only an essential but also possesses truths about life’s deep meanings.  I believe the myth about the value of viewing a dead human body has underlying value but it must be given a breath of life to be effective and reclaim its ancient position in the betterment of the human experience.

I know this position is not and will not be popular, but I thought it worth putting pen to paper.  Also I want to go on record that I believe firmly in the myth that Capt. Chesley Sullenberger is a true American hero.  It makes me feel good to hold that private truth close to my heart, and I hope that when my plane is starting to descend into the murky waters of the Hudson River that the hero myth of Mr. Sullenberger is sitting in the cockpit.  The other reason I like to hold onto the hero myth concerning flying of course is much more practical – I don’t know how to drive a great big airplane, and I suspect neither does Bill Maher. 

Anyway that is one old undertaker’s opinion.  TVB

     This cemeterian was in awe last Thursday as his cemetery buried Ouachita Parish Sheriff's Office Deputy Cpl. J.R. Searcy.  Cpl. Searcy  died on March 6, 2010 from a gun shot wound he received on March 4. The assailant was killed by another Deputy during the shoot out. Cpl. Searcy was surived by a wife and three children.  The service at the church was attended by over two thousand mourners.  The procession was over 4 miles long and lasted 1 hour and ten minutes.  Police officers from all over the country attended.  Officers from Chicago, Ill., Cleveland, Ohio, many parts of Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi attended, as well as hundreds from all over Louisiana. One bystander counted over 350 marked police units. Eight mounted officers on horses and 50 K-9 units were also in attendance. As a cemeterian this was an honor and a privilage for me to be able to serve Cpl. Searcy's family and all of the people in attendance. It was an honor that they chose our cemetery. The Attorney General of the State of Louisiana was also in attendance and he made the comment to a friend that he had just witnessed the Super Bowl of funeral's.  If you have never witnessed what is called "the last call of a police officer" it is a touching tribute to a fallen officer.  The "last call" ended the ceremonies at the cemetery and it went like this. The dispatcher sends out a radio transmission to Searcy.  After several calls by the dispatcher and moments of silence. The dispatcher announces that Searcy is 10-7 "out of service" and 10-42 "gone home".  Not a dry eye was in the cemetery during this touching tribute. If you would like to see pictures of the ceremony go to www.pattystewartphotography.com, click on order or view on line, then click on events and ceremonies, then click on Cpl. JR Searcy funeral.

 As the year comes to a close, I traditionally sort through some random notes and attempt to tie together some loose ends. For me personally, the year was both challenging and rewarding and it ends on very satisfying note as we look to build on our early success and continue to grow the Memorial Business Journal in 2010. I guess after spending a number of years in one place, I do feel a little like Jay Leno moving to the 10 p.m. slot. And as you can tell by the page count of this issue, we had a lot going on in the final weeks of 2009. We are looking forward to helping you take on whatever challenges 2010 will throw at us. But before then, those random thoughts...

 ALFRED BERNHARD NOBEL

1833-1896

DISCOVERER AND INVENTOR OF DYNAMITE

President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.  When Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter won it seemed by most accounts that there was universal happiness and pride in the United States about our President(s) attaining this globally singular honor. 

Recently during lunch I watched the nonstop coverage by CNN about whether or not Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.  There were heated arguments, the race card of course had to come up, and the political pundits basically dissected the subject to the point that people eating their lunch asked the proprietor to turn off the television – now there is an idea worth consideration – turning off the box of dots, or more correctly today of digital fiber optics.  Privately it worried me that any American would not rejoice in the success of our President – but that is something that I think I will keep to myself.

This essay and this rumination have little if anything to do with President Obama, but as a human being and as an American I was happy that he won.  Better I think that the President of the United States win the Peace Prize versus and a few other kooky world leaders I could think of – but that again is my private opinion and I don’t want to do anything which will get me reported to the blog cops.

Here is what I would like to share.  The minute I learned that our President had won the Nobel Peace Prize I immediately started to think about Alfred Nobel, the creator and sustainer of the prize itself and the terribly interesting story behind the now world renowned prize.

Alfred B. Nobel was by all accounts a genius.  He was a Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, large armaments manufacturer, and the interestingly the singular inventor of dynamite.  He owned BOFORS, one of the major armaments manufacturers in Europe which made almost any kind of war and killing instruments and weapons that a country could want.  Add the sole rights to dynamite and Al Nobel made millions.

Everything was going great for Mr. Nobel until 1893 when the newspaper Stockholm Fria News received a report that Alfred Nobel had suddenly died.  Without much of any investigation the newspaper with front page headlines announced the death of Alfred Nobel to the world – but the problem was that Alfred Nobel was alive and well.  In short order he read his own obituary.

The premature obituary which horrified Nobel was headlined with this bold caption:  “THE INVENTOR WHOSE INVENTION HAS KILLED MILLIONS IS TODAY DEAD HIMSELF.”

Dynamite and the war armament business had taken an unknown toll on Nobel’s reputation.  The headline stunned the old man and he decided that the world would NOT remember him as being the inventor whose invention killed millions but instead the world would remember him and his name as being a synonym with excellence, with leadership, with creativity, with vision and benevolence. 

Hence Alfred Nobel laid the foundations for the Nobel Prize in 1895, two years after seeing how the world would have remembered him.  Nobel’s accidental brush with his own mortality was a great motivator for him to take action – and action now!

Alfred Nobel wrote his last will and testament and in the end left most of his enormous wealth for the establishment of the Nobel Prize which since 1901 has honored men and women for globally outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace and now economics.

Alfred Nobel would not live to see the first Nobel Prizes awarded.  He died at Sanremo, Italy, on December 10, 1896.  

Every Nobel Prize recipient owes much to a newspaper that messed a obituary up royally and to the stimulus and motivation one man embraced when he encountered the Grim Reaper face to face on the front pages of the paper.

One thing for certain, Alfred Nobel’s confrontation with his own mortality in the end did indeed leave the world a much better place.  Here is a happy ending concerning one person’s encounter with the Grim Reaper.  Personal death awareness can improve life greatly.

Anyway that’s one old undertaker’s opinion.

TVB

We all knew it was just a matter of time.  The horrible diagnosis of brain cancer basically sealed Senator Edward Kennedy’s fate.  I for one was surprised that he survived as long as he did – but then he had access to two of the finest hospitals in the world in Boston.

There was a time in my career, in the good old Loewen days, when Loewen purchased and operated the Doane, Beal & Ames Funeral Home, which is a very well known funeral establishment on Cape Cod.  In August of 1990, one month after I started working for the Loewen Group, I was invited to do a series of seminars for the Doane, Beal & Ames properties located on the Cape.

I had been a student in Boston and was well versed with the territory of Cape Cod, and the Cape was and is breathtaking.  When I arrived at Logan I rented a car and south I went, then over the Sagamore Bridge which is the gateway to Cape Cod.  I could taste the lobster as I drove.  Good stuff!

As I watched Senator Kennedy’s funeral ceremonies my memories flew around in my head like it was yesterday.  And for Todd Van Beck, yesterday and my association with Doane, Beal & Ames made for a once in a lifetime experience.

The head of Doane, Beal & Ames was a man named Bob Studley, and he was one of the most admirable and kind hearted human beings I have ever encountered.  He was a large man, had a wonderful smile, a tremendous sense of humor and had basically been the Kennedy family funeral director since the Ambassador had died in 1969.  Also Bob Studley was a stellar embalmer.  I respected him greatly and he and I became good buddies.

I probably made two or three trips a year to the Cape to do projects for Bob and his staff.  His right hand men were Ed Blut and Allan Copithorne, and the entire staff was really top notch – it was always an anticipated event to travel to the Cape and work with DB&A.

I remember one clergy seminar I was giving and during the lunch hour Bob came over to me and said “Do you have a minute?”  “Sure” was the response.  Bob walked me out of the church where we were meeting and introduced me to a man named Tommy.  Tommy was driving a black Lincoln town car and Bob said “Get in and I will follow you.”  I had no idea where we were going.

Tommy and I were now alone in the town car and the conversation began.  Tommy explained that he had been and still was the private chauffeur for the Kennedys.  I asked him how long he had been employed by the family and he said 43 years!

Being somewhat of a history buff, I immediately began firing him questions.  Tommy was a complete gentleman and answered them with kindness and patience.  Eventually we arrived at the Kennedy compound gate.  There were two black cars in front of the gate, with big burly men wearing black sun glasses with wires coming out of their ears.  Tommy rolled the window down said the magic words and the gate was opened.

Bob Studley was right behind us and he knew the Secret Service men by name, so instant access for him too.  The two automobiles circled in front of the main Kennedy house, we got out and the housekeeper and Tommy walked us up the front steps.  I looked to my right and far down on the porch was a wheel chair with an old lady wrapped up in blankets sitting in the Cape Cod sun.  The housekeeper whispered to me “That’s Mrs. Kennedy, be quiet, we can’t disturb her.”  I could not believe it.  Here I was, the Iowa farm boy, now just 20 feet from Rose Kennedy who was at that time 102 years old.

Quiet we were and into the house we went.  The Kennedy home was far from opulent, in fact I would describe it as terribly simple.  Green walls, photographs everywhere, old furniture, creaky floors.  I sat on John F. Kennedy’s bed, stood by the grand piano, sat in the private theater which obviously had not been used for a generation, and basically was treated like an old friend from out of town.

We went to the back yard and saw John and Jackie Kennedy’s home, across the street was Robert’s home and down the way was Ted Kennedy’s home.  It was certainly a once in a lifetime experience and one that actually today people don’t believe me when I tell them about it, even though I have pictures to prove it.  I can understand their disbelief because I couldn’t believe it myself when it happened, and had Bob Studley not used his considerable influence by being the Kennedy families' funeral director there would have been no way TVB would have made it to the gate – let alone walk through the front door.

However, what I was thinking about as I watched that wonderful Roman Catholic Funeral Mass take place in that old historic church, which I used to walk and drive by as a student and later as an educator at the New England Institute,  that old church located in that interesting area of Beantown known as “Mission Hill,” as I watched the funeral ceremony my memory of my visit to the Kennedy compound focused ultimately not on the buildings, or of seeing Mrs. Kennedy, albeit at a distance, but instead on a religious conviction.

In my conversations with Tommy I ultimately asked the question, “Where you here when President Kennedy was assassinated?”  Tommy looked at me for a moment and replied that indeed he was on the property that fateful day.  Here is his story:

Mid morning on the 22nd a Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court who lived in Hyannisport phoned the compound and asked the secretary if anybody knew of any trouble in Dallas where the President was traveling.  The Justice said that he had just caught the tail end of a report on the radio which he thought said something about shots being fired at the President.  Tommy said that Mrs. Kennedy was out golfing, and the Ambassador, who was an invalid due to a severe stroke, was bedridden upstairs and was being tended to by a private nurse.

Tommy and the housekeeper turned on the television and radio and nothing was being broadcasted.  Then out of nowhere all the electricity went out.  Tommy said he went outside to check the electric connections and the sight that greeted him was ten Secret Service black sedans parked in the circle driveway.  Tommy was instructed to go back inside, and in short order one of the top Secret Service men came in and broke the news that the President had been shot in Dallas, and the reason they turned off all the electricity was they did not want the President’s invalid father to accidentally hear the news over television or radio.

In the meantime a contingency of Secret Service men went to get Mrs. Rose Kennedy from the golf course.

Tommy said that in about half an hour Mrs. Kennedy arrived home and went directly upstairs to tell her husband the horrible news.  She was in the bedroom for about fifteen minutes and people downstairs could hear the old man weeping.

Finally Mrs. Kennedy came downstairs.  While she was informing her husband of the shooting and now death more family members had arrived at the compound.

Mrs. Kennedy asked everyone to come into the dining room and, according to Tommy, who was present, this is what she said to her family:  “We have terrible trouble in Dallas.  Jack has been killed today.  Today Jack was called by our Lord to give an account of himself as we all will be asked to do someday. Today was Jack’s day.  We all will have to give our account to the Lord.  Our family has survived other losses and we will continue forward.  I am now leaving for Washington, and our family will be kept together – no matter what.”

Tommy had tears in his eyes when he told me this story and I am not ashamed to say that tears were rolling down my cheeks as well.

I watched the funeral Mass for Edward Kennedy, and watched closely the family and thought, Mrs. Kennedy’s religious conviction is alive and well in the Kennedy clan.  I thought of the continued, ceaseless round of tragedies that has befallen this uniquely American family, and as they took the Senator’s remains to Arlington my thoughts returned to Tommy and the fateful day I had skirted the Kennedy world and learned something about the power of a solid religious conviction and belief.

Having to give an account of yourself to the Lord, whether you are the President of the United States, a United States Senator or whoever.  That was Rose Kennedy’s approach to coping with the losses in her life.

Makes one stop and ponder the big questions of life – does it not?

Anyway that’s one old undertaker’s opinion. TVB

It might be helpful to remind folks that Walter Cronkite passed away last Friday after having lived nine decades.

I was traveling that week in Tennessee and Mississippi and I noticed that so many people had not realized that Mr. Cronkite has died.  However everybody I encountered knew that Michael Jackson had died. I found this somewhat disconcerting but not entirely surprising.  It was almost like I was waiting for CNN or some other 24 hour news cast to announce a month after his death that, “We interrupt this program for a breaking news story:  Michael Jackson is still dead.  Film on the hour every hour for twenty four for the next five years.”

Yes, indeed, I was reminded once again that Michael Jackson was in fact dead.

Late one evening last week, the day after Mr. Cronkite died, I watched a several-hour tribute, which in comparison with what has aired about Michael Jackson, was a brief tribute.  Let’s remind ourselves that Walter Cronkite was widely acclaimed as the best and finest in television journalism of our time, and while I was sitting in my bed in the hotel, I reminded myself that Mr. Cronkite had been elected “the most trusted man in American” in 1972.  In about two hours this tribute (on cable news) was finished and I felt cheated.  I wanted more.  I thought that in this age of 24 hour news, the cable news network, the major networks, and all the accessory means of beaming out stories to the world, that the media might have been able to fill a few more hours with reflections on Walter Cronkite’s singular contribution to American and world history, but that was not to be.

But what an influence Walter Cronkite had!  I remember as a young lad in Iowa hanging on every word that come out of his mouth, including his announcement of President Kennedy’s assassination, and how touched I was that he shed a tear after he announced to the world that Kennedy was indeed dead.  I was listening to Walter Cronkite while in a funeral coach responding to a death call in 1969 when he play by play took us through the landing of a man on the moon.

I recall vividly Mr. Cronkite’s moving reports from the war front and how he almost challenged President Lyndon B. Johnson on the war when he proclaimed on the CBS Evening News that he thought the Viet Nam War was in a stalemate.  Mr. Cronkite’s treatment of the Watergate scandal was professional and diplomatic, which was a requirement to help hold the country together, and his unforgettable coverage of the Iranian Hostage crisis helped to calm and reassure a panicked nation when even the president of the United States appeared lost and alone.

Interestingly, while most Americans remember the Beatles only in association with Ed Sullivan and his Sunday evening variety show, the truth is that the Beatles' first exposure to America was on Walter Cronkite’s televised news report

Walter Cronkite was able to accomplish exactly what Edward R. Murrow had pulled off a generation before, and that was personifying the absolute best in television journalism.  “BREAKING NEWS: MICHAEL JACKSON IS STILL DEAD.”

The evening I watched the two-hour tribute to Walter Cronkite, the program was competing here and there during the same two hour period with a story about Michael Jackson’s favorite tooth paste and an “exclusive” fifteen minute report on what literature the Jackson children were presently reading that week.  Nothing was said about the literature that Mr. Walter Cronkite enjoyed reading.

Without question, the death of Michael Jackson was indeed a tragic event, and yes, Walter Cronkite lived 9 decades while poor Michael only got 5 – certainly not fair.  With that said, I found it odd and interesting that “Bubbles the Chimp,”  Michael Jackson’s self proclaimed friend, got more airtime over the weekend than did Mr. Cronkite.

The death and funerals of these two highly divergent men make for interesting observations, which once again proves that funerals do reflect life.  Michael Jackson created news, Walter Cronkite reported it.  Michael Jackson was a showman, Walter Cronkite was terribly aware of the potential use and abuse of showmanship.  Here is an example.  For while Mr. Jackson’s death and funeral are still news stories night after night this was NOT how Walter Cronkite handled the reporting of the death and funeral of President John F. Kennedy.  For two weeks in the latter part of November 1963, Mr. Cronkite reported on the deceased president night after night, but Cronkite himself called an end to it after two weeks.  Enough, was his reason.  Enough – it was time for the country to move on, and he was correct.  

I fear that Mr. Cronkite’s beloved television journalism has left that clear type of thinking years ago, and the diatribe of Michael Jackson will probably go on and on and on and on.

Michael Jackson made records which had little if anything to do with real life.  Mr. Cronkite told real life stories which had everything to do with how things were on that particular day.  There is a big difference between the two.  Records and videos can be played time and time again – but announcing the death of the president of the United States comes only once.  “This just in:  MICHAEL JACKSON IS STILL DEAD, in spite of reports that he was seen with Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley yesterday at a Hollywood Starbucks drinking a latte mixed to Michael’s exacting specifications.  Film at 11:00 p.m.”

Michael Jackson made news.  Walter Cronkite reported it and helped interpret it.  Mr. Jackson made news by marrying Elvis Presley’s daughter, dangling a baby over a balcony, and, well, his activities with the young – you decide.  Walter Cronkite however reported to the world some of the most important events in history, and no million-selling album will ever compete with that concerning depth and character.

This is a terribly sad thought.  As I was watching the limited media attention to a 90 + year old man’s life, the thought crossed my mind that if Walter Cronkite had been accused of pedophilia or had dangled one of his children from the balcony of the Waldorf-Astoria, the media attention at his death might have been far greater than what it was.  Is that not sick?

However in the end both men’s funerals have turned into a truth serum concerning how they lived their lives.  Mr. Jackson’s funeral was a grand affair held in the Staples Center in downtown Lost Angeles which ended up costing the city millions of taxpayer dollars.  Mr. Cronkite’s funeral will be held at an Episcopal Church on Park Avenue in midtown Manhattan where he had sent his children to Sunday school and where his wife’s funeral had been held in 2005.

At present to one seems to be sure of the fate of Michael Jackson’s body, but Mr. Cronkite will be laid to rest in a quiet Kansas City cemetery in the midwest which he loved so much, next to his wife Betsey.

I always thought that Mr. Cronkite had an outstanding and real cool signoff with “And that’s the way it is.”  However, given the state of the television journalism in these times, I think that if he had done his signoff while wearing one white sequined glove he might have gotten a few more tributes and mentions from his own beloved profession – television journalism.

Of course in Mr. Cronkite’s broadcasting heyday, such a nutty stunt would have certainly have gotten him fired from CBS and well might have sent him packing off to the nearest funny farm.

Walter Cronkite is no more, and with his death television news journalism lost one of the moral icons that kept news focused, kept news honest, and kept news interesting – and Mr. Cronkite was able to do all three for over 5 decades – not bad.

Now at the present when I watch a “television journalist” reporting once more on such “critical” events as the status of Lindsay Lohan’s love life or the utterly tragic world-shattering and devastating news of Jessica Simpson’s horrible breakup with a man named Tony Romo, I have to wonder – did Mr. Cronkite really die of advanced vascular disease, or, my friends, did he really die of a broken heart?

In my heart of hearts I can easily imagine that it just might be that Mr. Walter Cronkite’s last words were, “look at what they’ve done to my medium.”  “News Flash:  MICHAEL JACKSON IS STILL DEAD. However his music will live on after record producer Lance Loveguard announced that Michael’s son Blanket will record a box set of Michael’s ‘cover’ tunes.  Film at 2:30 a.m.”

There will not be a televised tribute show at the Staples Center featuring celebrities singing songs and forgetting the lyrics in front of a framed photo of Walter Cronkite.  As well it should be.  Also news stations across the world will not be interrupting “All My Children” and pissing off one million soap opera fans to show the solemn funeral procession or Mr. Cronkite’s burial in Missouri.  As well is should be.

Walter Cronkite thankfully will be buried in the same way he delivered the nightly news for two decades – with dignity, free of any hyperbole and sensationalism.  Mr. Jackson’s funeral reflected his life, Mr. Cronkite’s funeral reflected his – only difference is that Uncle Walter, as he was known to millions, really did deserve more air time on his air waves – he basically invented the profession and hence he earned it.

Anyway that is one old undertaker’s opinion.  TVB

What sort of image do you and your establishment and staff project? What are those first impressions you convey?

As the executive director of the Washington Cemetery & Funeral Association I receive a variety of calls from public and press. Today's was from a man who, while he did not want to make waves, wanted to let us know that he felt one of our members had provided a less than professional experience, not to mention somewhat disconcerting experience, to him and his family.

He had discovered a relative who'd died in 1925 was buried in a Seattle cemetery. He went to find the grave. There was no parking around the office so he parked alongside the road. The owner/manager smoked cigarettes throughout their encounter (!!) in the office, which he described as more or less industrial-looking, not so comforting or comfortable.  He inquired about the location of the grave and was given directions. He could not locate the grave. Returning to the office, he was told there probably wasn't a gravestone but there should be a very small concrete temporary marker. Couldn't find that, either. Returned to the office again, asked if he could probe around the area for the temporary marker, was told "no". Bottom line: if he wanted to find his uncle's grave he'd have to buy a marker (this was implied, not directly told to him). He inquired where he could buy a marker and was told he could only buy one from the cemetery, not from an outside provider. This is not legal, but he didn't know this.

Net result: he bought a marker from the cemetery and was satisfied with how it turned out, but felt somewhat unsettled by the whole encounter. Again, he did not want to make waves, but was curious if his experience was normal, or not. Felt like someone should know about it. Called me.

I asked a few questions and thanked him for calling me. I told him I would share his experience with my newsletter readers. In my work as editor of our association's newsletter, I often share stories and articles reinforcing for our members the importance and delicacy of the work they do. I found this man's story to be a real opportunity for me to remind people about the importance of first impressions, of customer service, and of the legalities of what they can and cannot do.

All of which is to say: be acutely aware of the image you and your staff present to your families!! Be cognizant of every detail. Have your staff critique each other and for godsakes send out surveys to your at-need customers - and pay close attention to what they have to say.

In these days of frugal shoppers it's more important than ever to provide as close-to-perfect service as you can.

[And now for a commercial message: attend every ICCFA event you can - you'll learn all the nuts and bolts you need to be the most classy act in town!] [ditto: attend every WCFA event for the same results]

A few years back, my husband and I decided to buy replacement windows for our townhouse. The darned thing was practically made of windows -- 26 of them -- so we were no small account.

We got bids from two local companies and one large chain operation. All good companies, all good reputations, all eager for our business.

Two of the companies sent sales reps to our home. The large chain one in particular had quite the dog-and-pony show, with sample windows and demos to steer us away from their "good" and "better" options toward the "best." I'll never forget the look on Joe's face when their rep got down on his hands and knees on our floor to show us, using a little heater and fan, how airtight that sucker was.

The other company that sent their rep over almost got the sale. In fact, we signed on the dotted line and sent the happy rep on his way. But buyer's remorse set in. Something about the way we were pressured to "buy now" to get his special deal didn’t sit well with us, and so we took advantage of our three-day FTC Cooling Off Rule prerogative and called the next day to cancel.

We went with the third company, and I'll tell you why. They weren't the cheapest (they fell somewhere in the middle) and they weren't the most eager (they didn't send a rep over), but we felt they were the most straightforward. The guy faxed us a sheet explaining all of our options, including all the pricing information. He didn't try to discourage us from buying Models B or C instead of the more expensive Model A, and he didn't try to pressure us into buying now. In other words, he didn't treat us like prospects. He treated us like people ... intelligent people who had a decision to make and simply wanted the info necessary to make that decision.

The windows worked out great, by the way. If you live in Northern Virginia and are in the market, let me know and I'll be happy to pass on the referral.

Just a few quick notes before hitting the ol' dusty trail home:

First, a bleg ("use of a blog to beg") on behalf of one of our members on the Network: Anyone know where it might be possible to find a discontinued Batesville Keepsake Urn called "Ocean Waves"?

Here is a photo of the urn:

If you know where one of these might be found, please send a note to Web Site Feedback via our Contact page, or leave a note here in the comments.

Second, a new feature is coming into fruition, the industry event calendar, which is tied to the associations in the Association Pipeline database. We've just started filling in the dates, and there are a LOT more to go, but you can get the idea how having a comprehensive list of all the events in the industry, world-wide, will be a useful resource.

Getting this first batch up, probably a few hundred listings at minimum, will be one of those hercules-cleaning-the-stables kind of tasks for those of us working on it, but once it is up to date maintaining it won't be such a big deal. Note: If you are a current ICCFA member you can create events here, and be sure to use the handy "Organization" dropdown to attach the event to your state association or other association.

Finally, there are going to be a lot more articles posted pretty soon in the Reading Room, in addition to the hundreds already there. The sheer quantity of information there has brought us to the point where you can do some really interesting topical searches. Try it out! You can use either the regular site-wide search tool, or the more focused one in the reading room. I am going to create a page with some pre-scripted custom searches as soon as I get out of this Slough of Despond a little closer to completion of the site.

When a funeral director gets chosen for one of those “man on the street” interviews, look out.

I’m writing a series on dealing with the media that is running in ICCFA Magazine, but one topic I’m not addressing is that random interview. I can think of no worse or more vulnerable position to be in than when a roving reporter or interviewer randomly selects a funeral director as the “man on the street.”

Let me give you an example, a glaring example. Years ago, I had a student at the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science named Jamie Bowles. Jamie is still in funeral service in an Eastern state and has done mighty well for himself, and we have remained good friends.

One evening a few years back, I was watching “The David Letterman Show” and as he often does, Letterman sent somebody to roam the streets of New York and pick out people to “interview.”

To describe what Letterman does as an interview is truly a stretch; this particular evening the interviewer was a man who operated a deli in Manhattan. The camera starts rolling, Letterman is giving the deli man his instructions and in time several customers enter the store. One of them was none other than my friend Jamie Bowles—I damned near fell out of bed.

The deli man was quizzing everybody with the questions Letterman was telling him to ask. Letterman, back in the studio, would make comedy from the answers the customers were coming up with.

It was now Jamie’s turn and Letterman asked, “What do you do for a living?” My thrill turned immediately to concern and I watched as Jamie paused, got a little smile on his face and said, “I’m a funeral director.” Letterman went out of his mind on the air and firmly told his deli operator to “Get him (Jamie) off now!”

Mr. Bowles is always the gracious gentlemen, and he took the snub in stride, but it was a glaring example of how the subjects of funerals and funeral directors can ring bells and whistles.

The rest will follow shortly

Just try not to cry when you read this Valentine's Day story about a 10-year-old boy who has channeled his grief at losing his twin brother into baking cookies. He sells them and donates the money to groups that helped his family during his brother's 2-year battle with cancer.

I waited a couple of days to make sure the link would still work. If you don't already have a Washington Post account you might need to sign up to read it, but it's worth it. (And speaking as a former newspaper person, it's a great Web site.)

From Grief, a Md. Twin Bakes Valentines to Brotherly Love

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/13/AR2009021303502.html