[Albion Wilde]

The last Methodist Preacher, a man of undetermined sexual choices was the last straw for my MIL. One of the first things he did was to remove the American flag in the church...She labeled him an outright communist, and he didn't deny it. She stopped going to church. The Mehtodist preacher never visited he in her home or retirement home inspite of her being born into that church close to 90 years before her death.... she did not want the funeral held in the Methodist Church.

This could be my story line for line, with a few exceptions: it's in the midwest and I'm not; I'm not that old; and when I confronted my pastor about being gay he denied it; yet he was one of a group who so disrupted the 2000 Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference with their emotional declarations of gayness and lesbianity that police had to be called.

My executor looked at my recently-written instructions with bemusement: no pastor at my funeral, and hold it in the auditorium of the nearby school. I do hope to settle on another church before it's time, but until then, those are standing orders.

[Grampa Dave]

My Mother in Law prepaid the funeral parlor for the use of their big room for her funeral two years before her death. The only people who could speak at her funeral as per her request was the Baptist Minister, her sons and my wife. They opted for me to say a few things about her.