Fun Funerals
Jan. 18, 2001 — -- If a funeral had to be a sad affair, the word wouldn't begin with F-U-N.A growing number of graying baby boomers want to celebrate life when they say that final goodbye.
The generation that gave us fast food and ATMs now desires to put a personal touch on last rites. And if that means replacing "Amazing Grace" at the memorial service with "Stairway to Heaven," amen.
Going in Style
"The boomers are reinventing the funeral. They don't think a funeral has to be all sad to remember their loved ones with respect," says Joe Weigel, spokesman for Batesville Casket Co. in Indiana, the largest North American coffin maker.
The folks at Batesville have seen it all in the last few years. One family had exotic dancers at their loved one's funeral because the deceased was "that sort of guy." A golf lover was buried with his lucky Callaway Big Bertha driver.
And then there was the guy on the West Coast who had a "boxing-themed" memorial. The funeral parlor was decked out like a boxing ring, complete with a drop-down microphone. Mourners actually stepped between the ropes like prize fighters to deliver eulogies over the sound system.
Recently, the family of Paul Wellener of Mount Lebanon, Pa., bought a pair of plastic seats from the old Three Rivers Stadium, former home of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Wellener had season tickets for more than 40 years. The seats will now be mounted on stone, along with an inscription, to serve as a grave marker.
Batesville surveyed 500 baby boomers over the last few years. Asked about what should happen after they die, 14 percent said they wanted mourners to "visit their grave." In comparison, 41 percent said they wanted friends and relative to "throw a huge party."
"This is all a throwback. A hundred years ago, most funerals were in the home, so mourners immediately had the sense of the deceased when they arrived to mourn," Weigel says. "Now we want to give mourners that atmosphere when they go to the funeral parlor."
At funeral directors conventions, Batesville now helps undertakers create services with distinct themes. Batesville's "Cool Jazz" funeral calls for the casket to rest on two loudspeakers (presumably playing a meditative selection of Miles Davis) with a drum set nearby.
The "Outdoorsman" funeral calls for the area around the coffin to be festooned like a hunting lodge, complete with mounted elk antlers, bearskin rug, and gun rack.
Remember, every life is special. If you spent your spare time in a La-Z-Boy chair, you might be a candidate for a Sports Nut funeral. The coffin would come complete with a keepsake drawer, so that you could be buried with a bag of chips, a beer, and, of course, the TV remote control.
P.S. Batesville used John F. Kennedy Jr.'s burial at sea to launch a new product, the Floral Reflections scattering urn. When placed in water, the pressed cotton urn floats for several minutes, then slowly dissolves and sinks, releasing the deceased's ashes into the sea.
Coffee Table Coffins
The great American philosopher Yogi Berra once said, "Why buy new luggage? You'll only use it when you travel." At one time, people thought that way about their coffins.
But these days people think differently. Some want to make sure they go to their final resting spot with all the grandeur of King Tut. Others want to buy now and save.
You might say the funeral business is following the rest of consumer marketing. When people buy a coffin, they either want a deep discount, Price Club-style savings, or they want top-of-the-line boutique luxury.
Consumers once felt at the mercy of funeral directors when buying a casket. But now they shop elsewhere. You can buy a coffin online or through a number of low-cost outlets for under $1,000 and it will be shipped to you in less than 24 hours.
The Federal Trade Commission requires funeral directors to accept caskets from suppliers without imposing a handling fee — a law that is quite unpopular in the industry.
In the face of all the cost-cutting competition, traditional casket makers are fighting back by offering value-added merchandise. The Batesville Casket Co., which supplies 40 percent of the coffins used in the United States, now has top-of-the-line models crafted from finer metals and feature a permanent seal and personalized engravings. They can run as high as $20,000.
A typical upscale mahogany casket with velvet lining will run between $5,000 and $6,000.
But the new market realities are allowing smaller manufacturers to jump into the casket game.
Woodworker Roy Davis turned to the funeral market after his sister died in 1992, and his family paid $3,000 for the coffin. He now operates Vintage Coffins with a partner in Murray, Ky.
"When I saw what we paid for my sister's casket, I knew I could do better myself," he says.
But designing a coffin to order is a slow business, requiring weeks of work, and the dead can't wait. How does Davis survive? He is finding customers who buy coffins now and store them for the inevitable.
"Maybe it's a little odd, having your own coffin in the basement, waiting for you," he says. "But it is practical, too. You have just what you want and you are not passing surprise expenses on to your loved ones."
He says one of his customers, a 30-something Microsoft executive, uses his future coffin as a wine cellar. "The guy keeps a latex dummy in there, just as a joke," Davis says.
Another man uses his coffin as a coffee table. "I don't think it's that strange," Davis says. "I'm going to fashion one for me as a grandfather clock. When I stop ticking, they stop the clock, put me in the box and bury me."
Davis' handcrafted caskets can cost several thousand dollars, depending on how elaborate you want them. "I made one shaped like a steamboat," he said. "I'm hoping to make another like a boat-tailed Deusenberg. That's an old car from the '30s with big fenders and a trunk that slopes down and in from the sides like a boat."
But he's hoping to really establish himself with his new screw-together kits that people can store and assemble themselves. They retail for about $500. "In the age of Ikea," he says. "I think that makes sense."
P.S. How's this for a subject for a marriage counselor: Davis has built his wife's coffin. And she is now using it as a dollhouse. "She is a smart, beautiful woman, very successful," he says. "She just plans to be buried with her dolls."
Fame at Last
If you want to make it into the New York Times obituaries, here's some advice: Live in New York, Los Angeles or Washington; work as a business executive, university professor or government official — and don't die on a Saturday.
Looking at the Times' obituary page over the past six years, writers John C. Ball and Jill Jonnes arrived at the following conclusions in their book Fame at Last:
Members of Congress have the longest average obituary. Perhaps that's a statement on folks who are usually criticized for being long-winded. The average length of photo and editorial combined is 25 inches.
If size truly matters, congressmen are followed by singers, judges and military personnel. Athletes are seventh, authors eighth, inventors 12th, Hollywood directors 14th, and philanthropists 27th.
The longest individual obituaries were for Richard Nixon (510 inches), Frank Sinatra (236 inches), Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (210 inches), Joe DiMaggio (209 inches) and Warren Burger (158 inches).
The longest obituary for a black American belonged to Ella Fitzgerald (102 inches).
The vast majority of obituaries are for people who lived in New York, Los Angeles or Washington.
"There are certain career paths that just get more attention, and I think that says a lot," says Ball. "University professors and business executives usually do very well. Why do they do better than architects? I do not know."
Ball quotes longtime Times editor and columnist A.M. Rosenthal giving a tongue-in-cheek response of how one might make the obituaries:
"It is best to die before noon, 2 p.m. at the latest, so that there will be decent time for justice to be done before the early evening deadline of the first edition — and less inconvenience to the staff. All those interested in having the Times sum up their lives, even briefly, should also avoid dying on Saturday, when the deadline is very early."
P.S. Editors often assign obituaries to young staff members to teach them the importance of spelling names correctly. If you get the name wrong, the family of the deceased will roast you alive. Interestingly, Ball's partner, Jonnes, suffered the indignity of having her name spelled wrong on the book jacket. Andrew McMeel Publishing promises to get it right in the next edition (should it be published).
Buck Wolf is a producer at ABCNEWS.com. The Wolf Files is a weekly feature. If you want to receive weekly notice when a new column is published, join the e-mail list.