Buying the Farm
Pick the solitude that creates this cage. Does the gray ever tire?
Does it ever feel pain?
I want to see color again
--Chew Your Fingers, Glass Casket
The end of an empire
Is messy at best
And this empire's ending
Like all the rest
--A Few Words in Defense of Our Country,
Randy Newman
_______________
When you want your Maker to know what you done in this life, there is the Military Art Casket.
The advertisement ran in the July/August Purple Heart Magazine, and we went online to find particulars. They are sold at various sites, including Lynch supply (I kid you not) along with other vanity coffins, to include "The Last Stop" model (for truckers); "Fairway to Heaven" (golfers), and "The Race is Over" (in case you hadn't noticed, for racing fans). A peculiar bias exists as there is a "Korean War Veteran" and "Coast Guard" model, but nothing for the dearly departed of other recent conflicts.
They do feature a "premium crepe interior" for your comfort -- none of this shoddy middlin' value crepe, which would pill after too much movement. There are also "Plus-size" caskets for the "slightly large person," but they lack the slide bar hardware. (I don't know what you do if you are "real large.") Presumably if you're in one of those babies, they figure you won't be using the quick release anytime soon.
Ranger would like to go to the Great Beyond in style, and was hoping to find a hybrid Dale Earnhardt NASCAR/military branch model. While gratified to see the racing fan model, it was not specific to NASCAR, so my dream casket will have to remain just that.
Alternately, I was looking for a Special Forces model, possibly something in all black to signify Black Ops, but with no identifying crest, people might not get it. And besides, all black is a bit morbid outside of SoHo or the financial district in San Fransisco.
Labels: military art casket, vanity caskets
posted by rangeragainstwar at 9:02 AM
17 Comments:
Premium creepy interiors, yep.
One more reason to be glad I won't need a casket at all. They get to burn me (alas, no Viking ship) and bring me home in a martini shaker to dump me on the Labyrinth.
labrys,
That is a very sensible way to go, methinks. I elect for cremation, too.
Wrap me up in a burial cloth and leave me out in the woods for the critters.
Compliments of Wikipedia:
Each year, 22,500 cemeteries across the United States bury approximately:
30 million board feet (70,000 m³) of hardwoods (caskets)
90,272 tons of steel (caskets)
14,000 tons of steel (vaults)
2,700 tons of copper and bronze (caskets)
1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete (vaults)
827,060 US gallons (3,130 m³) of embalming fluid, which most commonly includes formaldehyde. [1]
(Compiled from statistics by Casket and Funeral Association of America, Cremation Association of North America, Doric Inc., The Rainforest Action Network, and Mary Woodsen, Pre-Posthumous Society)
Mad Celt,
We're on board with that -- see our 12/27/07 post, "Floating Downstream," re. biodegradable coffins.
www.rangeragainstwar.blogspot.com
/2007/12/floating-downstream.html
The whole undertaker business is fueled by vanity and guilt. (Yup, we're making lots of friends!) But the reality is, we could live so much more simply, and be much less of a blight on our planet.
Being worm food as you suggest is even better for the environment that cremation, which can add lots of particulate matter to the air that we don't need.
Good for you. One of our readers, Minstrel Boy, is also considering such an ending on the high plains in AZ.
Cremation for me as well. Don't want to take up good earth with my remains sealed up in products. Now that I've read Mad Celts data, I'm even more sure of my decison. Plus, no way do I want folks gawking at my body lying in some box-no way. Let my ashes fly into the ocean from atop Catalina Island, CA.
l.t. RN,
Exactly--ashes to ashes, dust to dust. That shouldn't bother good Christians.
Really, I can't bear the thought of rotting, or not, in some hermetically sealed cage. even if I do have a nice satin pillow. The mere thought is asphyxiating.
If something can eat me, then I am re-entering the chain of life. That is a cleaner and more liberating idea.
Woke up this morning
Put on my slippers
Walked in the kitchen and died
And oh what a feeling!
When my soul
Went thru the ceiling
And on up into heaven I did ride
When I got there they did say
John, it happened this way
You slipped upon the floor
And hit your head
And all the angels say
Just before you passed away
These were the very last words
That you said:
Chorus:
Please don't bury me
Down in that cold cold ground
No, I'd druther have "em" cut me up
And pass me all around
Throw my brain in a hurricane
And the blind can have my eyes
And the deaf can take both of my ears
If they don't mind the size
Give my stomach to Milwaukee
If they run out of beer
Put my socks in a cedar box
Just get "em" out of here
Venus de Milo can have my arms
Look out! I've got your nose
Sell my heart to the junkman
And give my love to Rose
Repeat Chorus
Give my feet to the footloose
Careless, fancy free
Give my knees to the needy
Don't pull that stuff on me
Hand me down my walking cane
It's a sin to tell a lie
Send my mouth way down south
And kiss my ass goodbye
Repeat Chorus
john prine
A good one, MB!
I have requested that I be placed on a suitable boat, with the appropriate pyre set ablaze and then sailed off towards Valhalla. Or is it Camelot? With my luck, it'd be Detroit.
Burn baby, burn.
There might be bigger demand if this right.SAD
http://europebusines.blogspot.com/2008/08/massive-us-naval-armada-heads-for-iran.html
jo6pac
Off to make surte there's enough food on the shelves.
labrys, i'm moving in the same direction.I recently attended a catholic service in which the ashes were blessed with holy water.that was a surprise .
mad celt. thanks for the figures -i was dying to find out these facts and you saved me the trouble.In some states i believe they require embalming BEFORE CREMATION. Are you up on this? if so pls share. jim
MB, i would add Sam Stone And your flag won't get you into heaven anymore by Prine. they are not relevent to this post but they are great in their own special way. jim
My personal goal has always to be incinerated in a longboat placed on a pile of WP rounds with Karl Rove bound at my feet. Every good Viking funeral has to have a dog to sacrifice to Odin alongside the departed. And my ashes (suitably blessed with a spritz of good scotch) sprinkled in my bride's underwear drawer, so that I can be as close to heaven as this old sinner will ever get.
I find the whole burial rigamarole wierd, frankly.
Chief,
I love it! Our way of death and the funeral home-burial ritual is very freaky, IMO.
On a practical level, resources are dear. Don't take up the space in these weird gardens of stone mostly visited my the lawnmower men; if you want to buy something in homage, not showy flowers which soon die, but a donation to some worthy cause. Tell someone you love them when they're alive.
These shows of grief are most often for the survivors, who mourn their own loss and guilt. I am always amazed that it is often the most devout Christians who go with the most troubled souls and survivors.
Why would we grieve if we really believed they were going to a better place"?
The best I have seen was a miniature inflamable boat made of biodegradable paper to keep the ashes in. The mother of a friend of mine went in one of those. Launch at open sea, in flames or not as you please.
fnord,
Thank you for sharing. That is another great idea. Hopefully, it'll steer clear of Detroit, as Publius fears his Viking ship will be taking him (!)
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