Venantius,
I have often seemed puzzled in my mind as
to how cremation of an entire body with the solid wooden casket
only amounts to a small canister (urn) of ashes. I phoned a
couple of funeral parlours in my area who directed me to the
crematorium operators to answer my queries. Their answers seem to
dodge my question......... as to whether the body was removed and
the casket resold ( recycled) ?.........maybe you could illuminate me
----- Original Message -----
From: "Venantius J Pinto" <venantius.pi...@gmail.com>
To: <goanet@lists.goanet.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2013 1:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Goanet] Unrest Eternally !
Hi Mervyn,
Now you make very good points. Interesting story on TStrange. Language is
very interesting in where a thought points us to. I read this joke
recently: A duck goes into a bar and asks for a drink. The bartender says:
Can it put it on your bill.
The tidal pool anecdote is really interesting, and STRANGE. The funky bit
to my mind (and perhaps yours too) is the relationship of the two to each
other, conflated with the tidal pool, undertow and all. Lord this is a
riot. Good one.
Good idea of the brass band. My brother got a brass band for my Dads
funeral. The sad part was that they all looked horribly sad. I did a book
on Dads funeral. And imagine that my parents had a ten piece band at their
wedding. Anyway, if I was at the funeral then for sure I would have yelled
at the people to snap out of it.
Thanks for the clarification about Niagara. I am also very please that you
did not misconstrue my exhortation to damn your ashes.
Thank you.
+++++++++++++
venantius j pinto
Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 16:51:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mervyn Lobo <mervynal...@yahoo.ca>
To: "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!"
<goanet@lists.goanet.org>
Subject: Re: [Goanet] Unrest Eternally !
Mervyn wrote:
VJP,
Till this very day, if you are Catholic and you conk off in Toronto and
nobody comes to claim your body, Catholic Charities will bury you for
free
- with all the last rites. I am not sure if the cremation approval
started
when they started running out of space at paupers graveyards in Europe,
but
that is my guess. Catholic Charities here have a whole set of lawyers and
they will even bury family members together when requested.?
This leads me to the story of a lawyer named Thomas Strange who was
shopping for a tombstone. After he had made his selection, the
stone-cutter
asked him what inscription he would like on it.?"Here lies Thomas
Strange,
an honest man and a lawyer," responded our lawyer.?"Sorry, but I can't do
that," replied the stone-cutter. "In this province, it's against the law
to
bury two people in the same grave, and the authorities would be confused.
However, I could put 'Here lies an honest lawyer.'"?
"But that won't let people know who it is" protested the lawyer.?
"Sure they will," replied the stone-cutter. "Everyone who reads it will
think, 'That's Strange!'"
-x-
The request that conformed into my idea of strange, however, was when I
attended a ceremony where the ashes of someone and his mother-in-law were
dropped into the same tidal pool.?
?
As for cremation, during the process the water component of the body gets
vaporized. This condenses and can later fall as rain on someone who is
riding his motor-bike home. In my mind, the only better farewell scenario
is to have a brass band, with happy musicians, swinging you slowly down
the
streets of New Orleans. This, I agree, is the height of pretentiousness.
Niagara Falls is far more cheaper for my last dispatch. I am
also?assured?that some of the participants will next go to one of the
casino's there?to enjoy those living moments.?
Mervyn
PS. Gabe, rest assured that it is perfectly legal to scatter ashes into
the Niagara Falls.?
