has passed to the Great Beyond is shipped via airliner to the destination of his or her choice, as expressed in his or her will or dictated by close relatives.
“Yuck!” Binky said with a small shudder.
I hope you will not have the same reaction and consider our investigation somewhat macabre. Of course I do not know your attitude toward dying and death. I do know that for many years mine was abject terror.
But then one day at the funeral of a good friend I recalled Aristotle’s classic dictum: “A whole is that which has beginning, middle, and end.” It is true for a whole life, is it not? That realization has been a great comfort to me, and I hope it may be to you as well.
I explained to Binky that we would canvass funeral homes other than Whitcomb’s. Since we were to attend Mr. Horace’s party on the following Tuesday, I did not want to run the risk of being recognized by Whitcomb employees, who might question the presence of journalists at the private affair.
“Journalists?” Binky said, puzzled.
“That’s what we’re going to be today,” I told him, “or for as long as it takes. We shall be two writers preparing an article for a national magazine on burial practices in Florida. Do you think you can play the role of a reporter?”
“Of course,” he said confidently. “We’re looking for a scoop—right?”
I sighed and we started out with two pages torn from the classified telephone directory listing all the local mortuaries.
At this moment I shall not detail the results of our peregrinations, but I promise you will learn them shortly. I do want to mention that although I feared our pavement-pounding might be dreary, it turned out to be unexpectedly fascinating.
We worked all day, pausing only once in mid-afternoon for lunch at a greasery that served French fries limp enough to be bent double. We then continued our labors until 4:30, when we decided we had accomplished enough for one day. We parted company, and I returned home to enjoy a delightful swim in a gently rolling sea just cool enough to give the McNally corpuscles a wake-up call.
Engraved invitations addressed to Binky and me had been delivered, requesting our presence at a celebration to be held on Tuesday evening at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Horace Whitcomb. My father raised one of his brambly eyebrows when being so informed at our family cocktail hour.
“How did you manage that, Archy?” he asked.
“Sunny Fogarty arranged it.”
The thicket went up another millimeter. “I hope you intend to dress conservatively,” he said.
“Archy always dresses beautifully,” mother put in.
“Maddie,” the lord of the manor reminded her, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But not this beholder.”
After a ravishing dinner of baked scallops (with braised endives) and a dessert of bread pudding with sabayon sauce, I went upstairs and worked for an hour bringing entries in my journal up to date.
I spent the remainder of the evening planning my weekend and making umpteen phone calls. I lined up a golf game for Saturday afternoon; dinner with Connie at Renato’s on Saturday night (playing Benedick to her Beatrice); a tennis match on Sunday afternoon; and a poker joust with a quartet of rapacious cronies on Sunday night. If a whole life really does consist of beginning, middle, and end, I wanted my middle to be as pleasurable as possible. We are all hedonists, but I’m one of the few willing to admit it.
Mirabile dictu, the weekend proved to be as joyous as anticipated. I awoke Monday morning full of p&v and ready for another day of research into the arcane practices of human burial in South Florida. Actually, it was only half a day, for by one o’clock I decided Binky and I had completed the needful. We repaired to the Pelican Club to lunch on barbecued ribs while we compared notes on what we had learned.
If you wish to prepare yourself for this recital, I suggest a sip of schnapps would not be amiss.
The statistics Sunny
“Yuck!” Binky said with a small shudder.
I hope you will not have the same reaction and consider our investigation somewhat macabre. Of course I do not know your attitude toward dying and death. I do know that for many years mine was abject terror.
But then one day at the funeral of a good friend I recalled Aristotle’s classic dictum: “A whole is that which has beginning, middle, and end.” It is true for a whole life, is it not? That realization has been a great comfort to me, and I hope it may be to you as well.
I explained to Binky that we would canvass funeral homes other than Whitcomb’s. Since we were to attend Mr. Horace’s party on the following Tuesday, I did not want to run the risk of being recognized by Whitcomb employees, who might question the presence of journalists at the private affair.
“Journalists?” Binky said, puzzled.
“That’s what we’re going to be today,” I told him, “or for as long as it takes. We shall be two writers preparing an article for a national magazine on burial practices in Florida. Do you think you can play the role of a reporter?”
“Of course,” he said confidently. “We’re looking for a scoop—right?”
I sighed and we started out with two pages torn from the classified telephone directory listing all the local mortuaries.
At this moment I shall not detail the results of our peregrinations, but I promise you will learn them shortly. I do want to mention that although I feared our pavement-pounding might be dreary, it turned out to be unexpectedly fascinating.
We worked all day, pausing only once in mid-afternoon for lunch at a greasery that served French fries limp enough to be bent double. We then continued our labors until 4:30, when we decided we had accomplished enough for one day. We parted company, and I returned home to enjoy a delightful swim in a gently rolling sea just cool enough to give the McNally corpuscles a wake-up call.
Engraved invitations addressed to Binky and me had been delivered, requesting our presence at a celebration to be held on Tuesday evening at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Horace Whitcomb. My father raised one of his brambly eyebrows when being so informed at our family cocktail hour.
“How did you manage that, Archy?” he asked.
“Sunny Fogarty arranged it.”
The thicket went up another millimeter. “I hope you intend to dress conservatively,” he said.
“Archy always dresses beautifully,” mother put in.
“Maddie,” the lord of the manor reminded her, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But not this beholder.”
After a ravishing dinner of baked scallops (with braised endives) and a dessert of bread pudding with sabayon sauce, I went upstairs and worked for an hour bringing entries in my journal up to date.
I spent the remainder of the evening planning my weekend and making umpteen phone calls. I lined up a golf game for Saturday afternoon; dinner with Connie at Renato’s on Saturday night (playing Benedick to her Beatrice); a tennis match on Sunday afternoon; and a poker joust with a quartet of rapacious cronies on Sunday night. If a whole life really does consist of beginning, middle, and end, I wanted my middle to be as pleasurable as possible. We are all hedonists, but I’m one of the few willing to admit it.
Mirabile dictu, the weekend proved to be as joyous as anticipated. I awoke Monday morning full of p&v and ready for another day of research into the arcane practices of human burial in South Florida. Actually, it was only half a day, for by one o’clock I decided Binky and I had completed the needful. We repaired to the Pelican Club to lunch on barbecued ribs while we compared notes on what we had learned.
If you wish to prepare yourself for this recital, I suggest a sip of schnapps would not be amiss.
The statistics Sunny
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