Bury
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Bury or Burn

Pirates used to bury their Loot on deserted Islands before they set sail to do more pirating and pillaging. A dog will bury a bone in the backyard, that is his prized treasure. You may be able to bury your dog in the backyard if something should happen to it.

The authorities seem to draw the line when it comes to burying a spouse in the backyard. With high burial costs, at one time I considered having a large garden, then when I died all my wife had to do was plant me  among the tomatoes, rutabagas or whatever it might be. That dream plan ended when we had to move into an apartment.

We bought a burial plot in a beautiful Small Town Cemetery just on the outskirts of town with spruce and pine trees planted all around, a beautiful place. Thirty years later the town built a sewer lagoon, right across the street from the cemetery. I told my wife if I should go first, for her to put a clothespin on my nose before they close the lid on the coffin.

I guess that wouldn’t maybe make a lot of difference after all. That would be like dying on the wagon train headed west, they bury you in the ground next to the trail, then proceed on West, leaving you in a cloud of dust but the dust won’t get in your eyes after they’ve already covered you with dirt in your roadside grave. Seems to be very extra sad though, to be left in the ground along the trail.

Our immediate family is buried in four different cemeteries within a 10 mile radius of where we live. Some of these graves have been in the cemeteries for over a hundred years. At one time, all of the work that was needed to be done at a cemetery was done by volunteers. They took care of the grave digging the mowing and the other upkeep of the Cemetery grounds. Most all the work was done with volunteers for decades, we have progressed to a point where there no are longer volunteers available to get the work done.

All cemeteries had Perpetual Care Funds set up. Through the years as volunteer workers became fewer and fewer, laws were changed to help make it easier to maintain the cemetery graves. Most caskets deteriorate and collapse within a matter of years and nowadays, possibly they’re made out of cardboard. When a casket collapses the ground caves in up above, so work is needed to fill that dirt that caved in to the ground, which requires someone to haul in a load of dirt and level it off and replant grass.

This created laws to be passed requiring a cement box be lowered into the ground that the casket would go into and a cement lid went on that box, this would pretty well do away with graves caving in, creating extra work.

The high cost of the cement boxes, the high cost of caskets and the High Cost of funerals have brought about a whole new wave of Cremations and that appears to be the way of the future instead of being buried you will be cremated and your ashes can be scattered to the Four Winds, at your favorite fishing spot or Watering Hole or cemetery.

Even if everyone is cremated in the future the need is still there to maintain all of these cemeteries. Family members will have to think about digging into their pockets to donate more money for care.

I think it would be a good idea to contact their Senators and Congress people and getting some type of legislation passed that will help recover the interest lost through  the past 20 + years and protect Perpetual Care Funds for future years.

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