The Family Plot Blog
Date with a Woodsman
Something fun to start your holiday weekend. Just had to share this video of a Honda Civic commercial that features the song "All I Want is You" by my friend Barry Louis Polisar. It's all about going green (just not green burial). http://youtu.be/rF_Wu4Ll_BU
Reality Show Seeks Undertaker Family Business
Safford Productions Inc., a casting and production company, is looking for the next reality TV family for a new show, "The Undertakers." This will be a real life comedy/drama that follows the unusual lives of a family of undertakers - think a real life "Six Feet Under." Do you get the strangest requests from people every day in regard to how they want things before coming to their final resting places? Do you know more than most when it comes...
Individual Personal Planning Week in New Mexico
April 16-24, 2011 has been declared "Individual Personal Planning Week" here in New Mexico by Governor Susana Martinez. Are you celebrating National Healthcare Decisions Day tomorrow? Now's the time to get those end-of-life affairs in order - advance directives, heathcare power of attorney designations, wills, etc. Planning for future healthcare or personal decisions can be a significant community service for our friends and families....
Song of Songs Poetry for Jewish Ritual Cleansing
The Jewish religion has a ritual for washing and dressing the dead for burial. This ceremony, called a tahara, is conducted by volunteers with the Chevra Kaddisha, which translates to "sacred society." During the washing part of the ritual, there's a beautiful Jewish tradition to read poetry from the Song of Songs. The poems are different for men and women. Both use loving descriptions to evoke images of the human form in the prime of life....
Obituary for R. Brian Burkhardt, Your Funeral Guy
Robert Brian Burkhardt, the funeral director who wrote the Your Funeral Guy blog, died after a heart attack on January 19, 2011. He was 58 years old. In a sad irony, while he was a crusader for funeral consumers, he left his family totally unprepared – no life insurance, no wishes to follow, no computer passwords on file. Under the nom de plume R. Brian Burkhardt, to distinguish himself from others with the same name, his Your Funeral Guy blog...
Stop for Funeral Cortege Says Dear Abby
Today's Dear Abby column looks at the etiquette of stopping for a funeral procession. A reader asks: For years I have wondered about this every time I have gone to a funeral and have ridden in the procession to the cemetery. As the procession travels to the cemetery, all cars and trucks pull over and stop. That custom strikes me as very touching. I was in another procession last week, and even the UPS truck and several semis pulled over. My...
Witness to a Native American Funeral
The funeral and burial for Tu Moonwalker in a pioneer cemetery located in the open high desert between Albuquerque and Santa Fe incorporated Native American rituals that left me with a profound appreciation for our physical existence and the eternal nature of our spirits. Before describing this funeral, please know that I was invited to attend and write about this event. Before taking pictures, I asked for permission and was told pictures could...
Five Tips to Deal With Death and Taxes
Death and taxes are life’s two certainties, and Gail Rubin, “The Doyenne of Death,” suggests five simple steps to relieve the stress related to these unavoidable prospects. “April 15 comes around every year,” says Rubin. “While death and taxes are both inevitable, we get much more practice preparing our taxes than doing funeral planning or organizing memorial services.” Rubin, author of A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan...
A Story of The Newly Dead Game at Frozen Dead Guy Days
While conducting "The Newly-Dead Game" at Frozen Dead Guy Days on Sunday, March 6, I didn't realize that one of the participants was a journalist! Richard Carriero and his wife Carrie were great sports when they played the game. Here's how he opened his story on Associated Content from Yahoo! about Frozen Dead Guy Days: It's 3:00 on a snowy afternoon in the Rocky Mountains. My wife and I are under a tent in the freezing cold, standing onstage...
A History of Women as Funeral Directors
There's a great story by Vinnie Rotondaro on Salon.com titled "Funeral Divas: How women are returning to the death care industry in droves." The history is fascinating! From the article: Before the 1860s, caring for the dead was viewed as a woman's role. Death care tended to take place in the home, and the cultural perception of women as more intuitive and emotional made them an obvious choice for the job. Additionally, because women were the...
Amazing Memorial Markers at ICCFA
Matthews International had some amazing memorial markers at the 2011 ICCFA expo. Two of these three examples, the golf bag and the bowler's memorial, can hold canisters of cremated remains. The golf bag can hold a foursome, with two more in the golf ball supporting the bench. The bowling memorial can hold two canisters. The Sponge Bob Square Pants memorial was actually created for an autistic boy who loved that cartoon character and...
Elizabeth Taylor’s Funeral
Elizabeth Taylor was laid to rest Thursday in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles in a small private ceremony attended by her children, grandchildren, and selected close friends. By her request, she was 15 minutes late for her own funeral. Taylor converted to Judaism before her 1959 wedding to Eddie Fisher. Jewish tradition for funerals call for burial within 24 hours, hence her funeral taking place so promptly after her death on Wednesday. She...
Alkaline Hydrolysis Halted in Ohio: Will Still Change Funeral Industry
Yesterday's Columbus Dispatch ran a story that the state of Ohio has halted the use of alkaline hydrolysis, a process that uses heat and lye to render body tissues to an environmentally-friendly liquid. The resulting sterile liquid can be safely poured into a body of water, onto land, or even flushed into city sewers. Family members can receive bone fragments, similar to cremated remains. Funeral director Jeff Edwards said he has performed the...
Trends in Funerals in the U.K.
The Funeral Service Journal in the United Kingdom, "The Industry Bible Since 1886," just reported on funeral planning trends there. Many of these findings reflect similar trends revealed in the Funeralwise.com survey of people in the US. The Ways We Say Goodbye is the first study to draw information from the arrangements being made at UK funeral homes as well as from the public. The Co-operative Funeralcare conducted research across its network...
Medical Implant Recycling
At the recent ICCFA expo of products and services, I came across Implant Recycling LLC. Medical implants of titanium and other metals, such as hip or knee replacements, screws, rods and plates, survive the cremation process, but they aren't usable. What to do with the scrap metal? Implant Recycling LLC is an environmental and recycling company established specifically to serve the crematory and cemetery industries by recycling the metallic...
Denying Westboro Church Attention: What an Idea!
This commentary by Mike Hendricks of The Kansas City Star, on silencing the Westboro Church's hate speech through protests at military funerals, provides great food for thought. Thinking leads to action - stop giving these people media coverage. What a great idea! Just wanted to share Mr. Hendricks' ideas with you. Commentary: Stop putting Phelps, Westboro church in spotlight Mike Hendricks, The Kansas City Star We’re suckers, all of us who are...
A Good Goodbye Selected as 2010 Book of the Year Award Finalist
A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die is a finalist for the 2010 Book of the Year Awards in the Family and Relationships category. Americans plan their finances, their families, their retirement, just about everything – except their funerals. That omission can mess up all their other life plans. A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die (Light Tree Press) helps families avoid emotional and...
New Trends in Memorial Jewelry
At the ICCFA convention and expo this week, I saw some interesting trends in memorial jewelry. Some pieces incorporate cremated remains, some highlight fingerprints. These bracelets below from Wilbert Memorialization Choices™ are sterling silver. The decorative end caps can be personalized with birthstones, silver, or four pavé band settings. The ends unscrew and can hold cremated remains or a lock of hair in each side. LifeGem®, which...
Kodak Photo Scanning System at ICCFA
One of the top trends in today's memorial services is showing a photo montage of pictures set to music. The challenge is getting a bunch of old photo prints digitized quickly and make sure they look good. In this YouTube video recorded at the ICCFA expo, Barry Symonds, Business Development Manager for Capture Systems and Document Imaging, demonstrates a Kodak scanner that can help funeral directors put photo montages together quickly and...
Gail Rubin on Buzz Snatching Teleconference
Author and event planner Gail Rubin will be discussing the Frozen Dead Guy Days celebration during the regular biweekly Buzz Snatching tele-workshop on Friday, March 11. The 30-minute phone conference is free. To register, email your name, company and phone number to buzzsnatching@gmail.com. The tele-workshop begins promptly at noon Denver time. Rubin played a major role in last weekend’s Frozen Dead Guy Days (FDGD) held in Nederland,...
Body Shipping with Eagle’s Wings Air
In this YouTube video recorded at the 2011 ICCFA convention and expo, Frank Kaiser, president and CEO of Eagle's Wings Air, talks about how his company helps funeral directors and families with the air shipment of bodies. Transportation issues are important for consumers to know, particularly for those who have elderly parents who live in a warmer climate and have burial plots many miles away (up North or back East). As the only air...