Old Fogey's table

There was no soil in my hometown.

Are you sure you want to talk about funeral services on the Old Fogey\'s forum. :grin: It\'s like seeing an advertisement for a funeral plot on the Lawrence Welk Show. I suppose they knew their target audience. :o har har

As you get older, you have to think about death more and more. Most of us really old types have made our peace with it. I find that as I age, the number of dead people I commemorate is becoming longer and longer, and some people are losing their individual commemorations. What\'s really awful is standing there trying to remember who\'s still alive and who\'s dead! I\'ve told my children for years that when I die they should put my birth date and the cause of my death in the newspaper notice, to save themselves a lot of incoming telephone calls. I work in a very large hospital that takes the most difficult cases, and I often have occasion to make way for a deceased patient being taken to or from Anatomic Pathology. The funeral homes use snazzy tweed body bags now. I guess that\'s another thing that has changed since I was young.

I remember my aunt telling me how they bought an embalming kit at the general store to prepare my great-grandfather for burial (not orthodox); and my father often mentioned how they simply laid out the reposed on the table, as there was no money for funeral homes during the depression. I\'m not certain they still do funerals as my kinfolk did, the professional funeral homes are just too expensive to hold out for three full days of visitation. (Even though they weren\'t Orthodox, there was something about keeping the body company during those first three days)

At least in the Seattle area, there are alternatives for expected deaths, and organizations that will assist you. You buy a simple coffin and use dry ice under the torso to preserve the body long enough for a funeral. In Europe you can still rent a refrigerated table to put the body on for the \"chambre ardente\" viewing at home, but they\'re harder and harder to find.

remember these?

someone sent me a \'nostalgia email\' I took the images from there.

I think my sister got her first guitar by collecting these.

I never saw these. I guess Mom wouldn\'t let me stay up that late.

I loved these machines. Very mesmerizing to operate.

Well dear one I am of an adult age and I was asked what band Pall Mcartney played with and I have dialed a phone and spun vinal and please join us at the \\"old guys\\" table

I had one woot , woot

Can I sit here? My kids actually think CD\'s are old-fashioned now that most music is downloaded onto MP3 players!

I remember when the monthly church bulletin was mimeographed. In fact I used to type the stencils for the English-language summary of our otherwise all-Russian bulletin.

Well this old fogey remembers incendary bombs dropped on us in World War 2 by the Germans. Also the prisoner of war camp nearby containing Germans & Italians, who worked by day on the farms & in the forsestry. We also had a windup record player with 98 (I think) records. We had a coal burning range with the oven on the side, but boy the food that came out of it was delicious. This was in England by the way. Also remember the ration books we had, the gas masks we had to carry to school and the first cup of chocolate supplied to us at school, thanks to the generosity of the Americans. Now I have a computer and I have used the old 80 column cards, been through the various mainframe computers from the IBM360..too many to remember at the age of 71 with 72 almost approaching. Now in New Zealand and enjoying our little Greek Orthodox Church mulling over the past with the other old fogies there. Take care everyone & God bless.