[Albion Wilde]

Years ago, we had a funeral director in our scout troop. He was one of the most amusing and upbeat parents, always smiling and joking—a relief from his work, I imagine. He and his wife and kids lived above the small funeral parlor, and since one of the sons was a troop member and expecting to join the business one day, the scout troop was invited to the funeral parlor for a tour of the work rooms (no remains were being processed at the time) and a Halloween sleepover in the visitation room. Eek! Eek! The experience did much to demystify the end of life experience for the boys,.

They were a wonderful Christian family in an old-time working class city neighborhood (this is a decade before the opioid crisis starting hitting white working class). But they eventually felt the need to move away from the city to a rural area, because of the horror of having to process a steadily increasing number teenagers shot in gang slayings from the nearby hispanic and black ghetto neighborhoods. Tragic.

[2ndDivisionVet]

A classmate of mine one year ahead of me in a smaller rural high school was an apprentice funeral director while he was waiting to graduate and go to college. I imagine he’s still doing it.