Headstones

Page 2 of 3<123>
July 4th, 2016 at 10:20:56 AM permalink
kenarman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 14
Posts: 4470
Quote: Face
I suppose I'd not minding tossing some parts that I ain't using to others. Donating my soft head is about the only thing I want to do, but the rest is probably too shot to donate for use. I just wish the options weren't so limited. I'd prefer to go back to nature as natural as possible. Burial without casket, or maybe just sink my bare body to the lake floor. Chop me up and feed me to turtles, something. There's a lot of good meat on these bones!


Maybe you should move to Tibet before you die. Some of the places way up in the mountains with no soil they cut-up your body and feed it to the buzzards.
"but if you make yourselves sheep, the wolves will eat you." Benjamin Franklin
July 4th, 2016 at 10:36:51 AM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
Quote: Face
I had to have a talk with the kid just last week about this. "Daddy, why do they plant people when they die?" S#$%, son, good question! My mind snap decided that in the olden days, people put them in the ground to make sure they didn't reanimate and become restless, so that's what I told him. "They'd walk around?" "No, but people weren't that smart back then. They thought[ they would, so they started this tradition. We know they don't now, but the tradition stuck." I dunno, sounded like it was close to the truth =p


The latter part is close to the truth.

See, we don't know for a fact why the earliest humans buried their dead. Our remote ancestors lacked a written language and therefore left no records behind. We know what the funerary customs of some early civilizations were, because they did leave records behind. In Egypt, for instance, death and burial were so important (to them), that we know a great deal about it. But we don't know how the idea got started.

So there's a lot of guesswork involved. Burials go back many millennia. Some of these customs just stuck around. On the principle that simple rituals stick around longer, I posit we mostly bury our dead out of sheer inertia, and we don't really know why!

So the ancients were not as not-so-smart as we think maybe? :)
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER
July 4th, 2016 at 11:10:31 AM permalink
Fleastiff
Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831
Egypt? Heck only the rulers (who were usually Greek) seem to have had burial chambers.

Those standing waist deep in the Nile fishing for 'a living' probably had their corpses feed the fish somewhere.

An old graveyard in one movie made the perfect Safety Deposit Box when a man had to suddenly be on the run: money, pistol, fake passports in a deposit box that was always open.

What is it,,,, Neptune Society... that advocates burial at sea? No coffin, no chemicals.... just a LONG voyage off shore to International Waters. Recycling.

Oh, and hundreds of genes change in the days after death...

As to timing: genetically its those telomeres. You know the protective end caps to the gene. When you run out of telomeres, you run out of time.

Of course there is that anti-aging gene 131 or something.... I asked some sweet young thing to mix me up an elixir but failed to tell first that it was an anti aging elixir, so simply told me to go get stuffed.
July 4th, 2016 at 11:23:45 AM permalink
FrGamble
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 67
Posts: 7596
I never like seeing big expensive funerals but I do really like headstones rather than the plaques that are level to the ground. A funeral director told me the only reason those things are around is to make it easier to mow the grass.
“It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” (
July 4th, 2016 at 12:13:41 PM permalink
petroglyph
Member since: Aug 3, 2014
Threads: 25
Posts: 6227
I think they started burying the dead because the corpses stank. Like a big giant pile of dung. Being carnivores, we smell worse than vegans and the worms and parasites grossed everybody out, and the stink attracted predators.

We signed up with science care here in AZ. They said they are in all 50 states but I'm not sure. They will come wherever and pick up our corpses and do what they want with them, then incinerate whats left and ask the next of kin if they want the ashes.

This is a wonderful thing. It is only my wife and myself and should one of us die, the other will be at their absolutely most decimated, and weakest. That is when either of us needs the most help, to start to heal instead of having to deal with a corpse.

Oh, and it's free. But if any of you are willing, I would really prefer a funeral pyre. Gather all the wood you can find, [no tires] and place me on top and set it ablaze. I will spring for a keg or two of beer, a bag of weed, nd whiskey if you like. AFAIK, in Ak, you can bury a loved one on your own property. I see no reason for a casket built from anything other than wood, or old pallets : ).

I had one doctor who wants my spine, he says he will get a condition named after me. Lineman often destroy their backs in a particular way.
The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury. GW
July 5th, 2016 at 3:23:35 AM permalink
odiousgambit
Member since: Oct 28, 2012
Threads: 154
Posts: 5055
Quote: FrGamble
I never like seeing big expensive funerals but I do really like headstones rather than the plaques that are level to the ground. A funeral director told me the only reason those things are around is to make it easier to mow the grass.


Here's the thing: you can't tax graveyards unless you want to evict the non-payers, which would be every family at some point, so universally cemeteries generate no money once the fees for the burial are paid. The final victory for those who hated real estate taxes all their life LOL. Whatever was earned is supposed to do the upkeep "in perpetuity". So every burial spot eventually runs into the problem of "who pays for the upkeep now that the money is gone?". It's one reason you see cemeteries alongside churches: the congregation can see to that upkeep.

Easier mowing helps. I like really old cemeteries to look at the tombstones, but I potentially prefer for new ones to have the plaques. One thing that is disgusting and common is for there to be a competition amongst the tombstones, you'll see a one-upmanship going on where the latest are taller and bigger to compete with those first folks who wanted their dearly departed to be seen as superior to the hoi polloi all about.

So, plaques can be better IF efforts are made otherwise to make natural looking surroundings, for me anyway.
I'm Still Standing, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah [it's an old guy chant for me]
July 5th, 2016 at 3:30:14 AM permalink
AZDuffman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 135
Posts: 18136
Quote: FrGamble
I never like seeing big expensive funerals but I do really like headstones rather than the plaques that are level to the ground. A funeral director told me the only reason those things are around is to make it easier to mow the grass.


Totally correct. My dad's dad was among the first in the cemetery where he was buried, the early 1970s and right next to the church. From the start it all had to be flush to the ground so they could mow easily.

One chain of title I searched had a restrictive deed that the owner had to keep the monument to the guy in place. It was near the road and I thought of driving by but never did. Still, in theory for all eternity whoever owns that parcel has to keep the marker up.
The President is a fink.
July 5th, 2016 at 4:06:09 AM permalink
odiousgambit
Member since: Oct 28, 2012
Threads: 154
Posts: 5055
Quote: Face
You worried about them taking you when you're just mostly dead? Or just don't want people poking at your pieces?


I suppose it's a resentment that they don't ask if they can do anything they want with your corpse, they instead ask if you want to donate your parts. Nobody talks about it, but that's carte blanche for them, I figure.

Quote:
I'd prefer to go back to nature as natural as possible. Burial without casket, or maybe just sink my bare body to the lake floor. Chop me up and feed me to turtles, something. There's a lot of good meat on these bones!


People who say stuff like that [me included] are people who's final wishes will not be observed EXCEPT for those few who make great efforts to be interred the way they want. Your family may vaguely know what you had in mind, but the cemetery they pick will not accept tossing you in covered in a sheet or something. You will get an expensive casket with a concrete vault over it too, to keep the grave from falling in and causing upkeep problems [see previous post].

Oh, you'll be embalmed too, save those extraordinary efforts. It's to make sure you're really dead, cynics say. For some reason I keep getting opportunity to bring this up here LOL.

Whoever in your family is left to deal with it is going to be overwhelmed. They will be asked to make decisions during a very emotional time. The people asking the questions don't want to bring up anything upsetting or that suggests that you are some kind of a piece of dung that doesn't deserve the NORMAL arrangements. They can't upset people and they have zero motivation otherwise; haven't you ever asked yourself why such expensive caskets etc are chosen? It isn't just good salesmen, it's also the family wanting the best for you and, yes, "what people would say" .

There is a cemetery near me that buries people the natural way, in a beautiful natural setting. It's what I want, check it out:

Quote:
INTERMENT REGULATIONS
Natural Materials and Embalming
1. Interment shall be only in or with naturally Biodegradable materials. Metals, plastics, concrete, synthetic materials or large pieces of stone may not be included in an Interment. The Cemetery may, at its discretion, on a case-by-case basis, allow personal jewelry to be interred.
2. Remains that are embalmed or otherwise chemically preserved with substances that are not approved by the Green Burial Council or equivalent environmental standards may not be interred in the Cemetery.
3. Remains discovered to constitute a health and/or environmental threat to the adjoining eco-systems will be refused and/or removed at any time.


Yet I too have made no move to see that these things are done.
I'm Still Standing, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah [it's an old guy chant for me]
July 5th, 2016 at 6:07:56 AM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18633
There was a news story awhile back on a place you can donate your body which trains crime investigators/coroners. They plop you out in a field, marsh, or woods, and let you start rotting. Then eventually they send the students out to find you in whatever natural condition you remain, aside from the maggots and animals chomping on you.

So there's your au naturel.
You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really?
July 5th, 2016 at 6:35:53 AM permalink
odiousgambit
Member since: Oct 28, 2012
Threads: 154
Posts: 5055
Quote: rxwine
There was a news story awhile back on a place you can donate your body which trains crime investigators/coroners. They plop you out in a field, marsh, or woods, and let you start rotting. Then eventually they send the students out to find you in whatever natural condition you remain, aside from the maggots and animals chomping on you.

So there's your au naturel.


That'd be fine if they agree to dispose of your remains [they'll want a fresh one sooner or later] in an all natural cemetery.

How much do you want to bet that doesn't happen?

I know, I always gotta be the turd in the punchbowl, sorry.

PS: I finally decided to quit putting it off and suggested to my wife we visit the natural burial place. Maybe I'll blog about it.
I'm Still Standing, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah [it's an old guy chant for me]
Page 2 of 3<123>