The Miller Monster Squad, FindAGrave.Com, FindADeath.Com and private hearse clubs

For some of us, an appropriate greeting - all year long - is "HAPPY HALLOWEEN!"

Not only does the look 'work for me', but I have long since learned that making close friends with thoughts and ideas that usually scare the Hell out of most people is the most effective way to forcibly evict scary monsters from your closets.Last week Mark and I was walking through a few local Halloween stores (Spirit , Johnny Brock's, etc.), getting ideas.

After walking through one of the stores for a few minutes, I could see a light come on in his head, and he said, "You're not really shopping for "Halloween", are you?

(In other words, an easy 'Halloween' look for me would be my daily wear.)

I have to add a couple simple things to add to my 'daily wear' look, and other than that - he's right! :)

This young lady won RuPaul's Drag Race this past season - in the middle of the summer. She won against 'beauty' drag queens. When RuPaul asked her if she "has anything to say about her win" (remember - this is in the middle of the summer!), Miss Sharon Needles answered:

"Happy Halloween, everybody!"

A video tribute to Miss Sharon Needles:

(the YouTube bastards won't let me link her video directly to my blog.  Go to YouTube and search "Sharon Needles Tribute". It's the second video that pops up - the one where she's dressed in black.)

I was 18 yrs old, bicycling through the parking lot of the Quincy (IL) Mall.  I noticed a black, shiny hearse across the lot.  It had a hood scoop, jacked up in the back with wide racing slick tires, dual exhaust pipes, and it's nose almost touched the ground.  The curtains were in the windows, and the script was on the side of the hearse.  It didn't take a detective to figure out that this hearse wasn't owned by a local funeral home!  I rode my bicycle across the parking lot to get a closer look.   Remember - this was BEFORE I was 'initiated" - before I had knowledge, and before I learned to take another look from a different point of view!  I was thinking what you are thinking:

"Who the Hell would ride around in a fricken HEARSE?"

The answer became apparent to me when I read the license plates.  They said:




From that moment on, I was hooked!

(Fast forward from 1987 to 1997).......

I was at a local St. Louis bar on Halloween Eve several years ago, when the door flew open, and some characters marched in. Cleopatra and Kung Tut (with a fully wrapped mummy following..)


A dead bride, and her dead Policeman husband proudly marched in. He was green, with flesh falling off, and she looked like she had literally clawed her way out of the ground! There were several more characters. All together, they were the "Miller (Beer) Monster Squad". When the door of the bar opened for them to come in, a huge cloud of fog came in before they did. I could hear LOUD "Phantom of the Opera / Angel of Music" playing outside, and I saw green and purple lights flashing through the fog. I wondered, "What the....????" These characters were passing out Miller Beer glow in-the-dark buttons to everybody who would switch to Miller beer for the remainder of the evening! After the characters passed me, I walked outside. I had to see what they were riding in! As I walked outside, I heard a loud HISSSSS, and the car sat down low on it's wheels, becoming a low-rider. The green and purple lights were flashing from behind the wheel wells. The paint job on the car looked like marble stone, and there was Victorian script writing on the window on the side of the car. It read, "The Miller Monster Squad". This car had been converted into a stretch limo - and it was a HEARSE! I was forced to love it!

This is just one of the many samples of how a hearse can life a second life.  Note the paint job, and the grille that looks like teeth - and flames:



Since orders on new hearses are fairly low, there is no company that makes hearses. They are greatly altered Cadillacs! The fleet division of Ford Motor Company sells a Lincoln Town Car with a special "hearse package" strictly to coachbuilders. Shipped without rear seat, rear interior trim, rear window or decklid, the hearse package also features a heavy-duty suspension, brakes, charging system and tires and was once offered on a modified Ford Expedition SUV chassis with the Triton V10 truck engine. Hearses and other funeral service vehicles are often equipped with light bars and other flashing lights similar to those found in emergency vehicles in order to increase the visibility of the vehicle while in processions.


Given the fact that the working life of a hearse is generally one of light duty and short, sedate drives, hearses remain serviceable for a long time; hearses 30 years old or more may still be in service, although some funeral homes replace them at least once a decade.  A new hearse in the USA usually costs in the range of $40,000 to $65,000. The best part of the deal is this: They can be bought for less than $5,000 - and often only about $1,500. There are several "professional car collector" groups, and a few have websites: Phantom Coaches, The Dead Sleds, and Grim Rides are the 3 biggest groups.


These people have a phrase: "Don't let your best ride be your last!"(Ignore the characters in the beginning of this video - but look at the cars!):

Because (most of) my family members are known to be piss-poor historians,  every other day or so, I comb through Hannibal / Quincy newspapers and funeral home service notices on-line to keep up with the news on who has left us.  I have made a trip back to my home town occasionally for a friend's funeral or visitation, and nobody ever bothered to inform me that they passed away.


I also rely heavily on Findagrave.com and FindADeath.com for information on where people are buried - from the most famous and historic to my own family members on my dad's side (and other average people!)


Whether famous, or the deceased is an ordinary person, FindAGrave.com usually features a picture of the deceased, while still in their prime, a picture of their actual grave or tomb, and if they have been cremated, the final disposition of their ashes, as well as an article on their life.  This site has information on millions of people, from King Henry VII to Michael Jackson...to Elvis Presley....to my own Keller ancestors who arrived in Philadelphia in 1732 before starting a homestead in 1750 in Virginia (this place is still operational as a historic homestead museum).  Other family members traveled on to Eastern Illinois, where FindAGrave.com lists their graves back to 1750.


If you want gory details on a famous person's death, FindADeath.com is the place for you.  Go to the "Search" box, and type in "Chris Farley",  "Gloria Swanson" or one of many other famous people's names.  The "Death Hags" (males, of course!) that have done research on these people have pictures of their last homes, usually in Los Angeles,   photos of their actual death certificates, sometimes police photos of their bodies as they were found, and in several cases (Ike Turner is one of them!), pictures of the deceased in their caskets at their visitation or funerals.  The person that operates FindADeath.com goes to as many of the funerals and visitations as he can, discretely taking photos of himself signing the guest book, and a picture of the deceased when he can!


Then we can get into the 'funeral customs, antiques and collectibles'.  That is another interesting side show, altogether!  I enjoy customs from all cultures.  Each has separate beliefs and customs when dealing with death.  All cultures have different burial customs.  The Japanese and Indian / Hindus will usually cremate their deceased.  The Hindus use cremation because of their beliefs, and the Japanese cremate the dead because of the simple lack of real-estate in Japan. Ashes take up much less space than a clunky casket.


I have enough knowledge about the American custom of putting a body in a box that makes me strongly against a casket burial for my body when I am gone.  I have watched bodies being prepared with my own two eyes (well one eye, anyway - I am blind in my left eye!) while taking a tour of a funeral home while in nursing school. This is my philosophy and final wishes:


"Fry me - and fry me fast. Return me to dust as quickly as possible.  The  slow, gooey rotting process in a box is not what is is cracked up to be, especially after I have been filled with a hideous solution that burns like hell fire, permanent contacts with SPIKES on them have been put in my eyes, my mouth has been wired shut using a gun that shoots wire through both jawbones to hold them together, and a tire-tool-like device is used to puncture the major organs in my abdomen, before a large plastic screw (Trocar)  is literally screwed in the hole to plug   I like wide open spaces.  The thought of putting me in a tight box, face up (which I hate!) loose it's original charm, if you know what I mean."


More information than you ever wanted to know about the American Funeral customs, including every step of preparing a body can be found on this page:


http://www.deep-six.com/deathweb/page221.htm


I also enjoy walking through virtually any cemetery. Not only do they present some great photography opportunities, but I get to acknowledge people that I may or may not have ever known. For one moment in time, I am thinking about that person - and a person that both time and people have forgotten decades or centuries before. At **THAT** moment, I am honoring and thinking about that particular person. They had a life. I hope they had interests. They saw things that I might never see, and they had stories to tell that should amaze anyone.
I find cemeteries very calming and restful.   I am never anxious or scared.  I will often take a book or magazine or my knitting, and sit in one of the comfortable seats provided in the mausoleum.  These places are usually airy, well lit, and well taken care of.  I absolutely love going inside any mausoleum that I can possibly enter.  I definitely admire the architecture while I pay tribute to the remains that lie there, lost to time.


There was a 98 yr. old woman that was taking a tour of the cemeteries in New Orleans.  She took the private tour, hosted by the gentleman that takes people around to several cemeteries in his own private hearse.  This woman bought out the tour, so she could have the hearse and the guide all to herself.  When he asked her why she did it, she said, "I wanted to take a test drive in one of these things before it is my turn!"


The same New Orleans cemetery tour guide always tends to have the right phrase at the right time to calm any jittery  people on his tour.  When they ask him about ghosts or spirits, he tells them, "Oh, don't be afraid!  These people never lived here - they are buried here!  What makes you think they would want to return to this place after they passed on?  They're not here in these cemeteries - they are out there among YOU!"


He is correct, with a few exceptions:  The spirits of myself and other Death Hags might actually wander occasionally into a cemetery.  We would still be hungry for the knowledge and the history that these places hold, and we would still want to pay tribute to the lives that are no longer on this earth, but each in their own way, no matter how big or small, made a valuable contribution in some manner while they are among us.

As an example, this is Dorothy Gage's grave.  Note that she was exactly 6 months old from the date of her birth when the passed away:




And a link to her FindAGrave.com entry:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=4083

Who is Dorothy Gage, you ask?  You might know her better as "Dorothy Gale" - from "The Wizard of Oz".  This 6 month old little girl is buried in Bloomington, IL.  Another fact: Adli Stevenson is buried in the same cemetery as Dorothy Gage.  The coincidence of Mr. Stevenson and Dorothy Gage being buried in the same cemetery is just that - a coincidence.  It's not because they're both famous.  Adli Stevens was the famous person, and Dorothy Gage was a little dead girl that was an average citizen.  L Frank Baum wrote books in "The Wizard of Oz" series.  Dorothy Gage was L Frank Baum's wife's niece, and she was grieving over the loss of this little girl.  Mr. Baum wrote the "Wizard of Oz" and other stories as a memory to the little girl, and to help lift his wife's spirits.

90% of the people who were the inspiration for the main characters in Mark Twain's "Adventures of Tom Sawyer"  - Mark Twain's  immediate family - are buried just over the hill, in the same cemetery as my grandmother, in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Hannibal, MO.

Another fact: Mark Twain (and his wife and children) are the only members of his family that aren't buried in Mr. Olivet Cemetery - Hannibal, MO.  They are buried in Elmira, NY.  Mark Twain's parents, siblings, in-laws, etc, are all buried in Hannibal.

But - there really was a 'Dorothy', from The Wizard of Oz, and she was the inspiration for the books written by L Frank Baum:

(L Frank Baum's FindAGrave.com entry):
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=2024

Even though L Frank Baum is buried in Hollywood, a movie town, he was dead 30 years before "The Wizard of Oz" movie was released.  L Frank Baum died in 1919, and the movie was released in 1939.  That man never knew his book was made into a movie.

(In the original book, Dorothy's slippers were silver, and not the commonly known Ruby Red.  Sparkly red is, by far, more flashy on screen than silver!  :)

I use the 'Web' - the internet - for what it was originally designed:  To gleam information, and to learn more about the world, of which I am a part.

I can spend hours on FindAGrave.com.  One person's memorial will inspire me to look up yet another, and so on, and so forth.  Look up, for example, graves of the actors / actresses that played on "Bewitched", or on "The Adams Family", or any other famous person.  One person will lead to the next.  There is a wide body of knowledge out there, and I try to soak up as much of is as possible.  When I was growing up, those around me (family members!) did their best to squelch any learning or growing that was taking place in my brain.  Now that I have effectively removed the cause of my irritation (family members!), the only way is up. I have been freed of those burdens,  and I will release them to answer to whoever will judge them, when that time comes.

In the meantime:  Anybody got a spare hearse that I can buy?

Anybody want to do a 'Cemetery Crawl?"  Give me a call!  I'm ready to go!



- Michael