How did you choose your username?

[Last Corpse Standing]

[quote user="Mark Carter"]


I really like the idea of Last Corpse Standing: great idea, one of the best I've seen. And being a gravedigger must be an interesting job, too. No hard work attached these days, either, as over here in the UKthey all use mini diggers and do the job in about 20 minutes. Reminds me of a story from the 60s (but I just hope all the religious hotheads currently slugging it out in the Grease Pit don't see this..........)[/quote]

In some ways, you're right. The backhoe did most of the work, but the physical labour was still extensive, so I'm actually quite happy to be out of the business. After 15 years, it takes a toll, and I wouldn't have wanted to do it much longer. As it stands now, I'm in the last week and a half of training to be a bus operator in Ottawa. Much easier job.

Don't get me started on stories from the boneyard. Most of them probably would make a few people around here sick. But they do make for a lot of fun to tell at the local restaurant while the people in the next booth turn green.

S

[Brendon Wright]

that really makes the ears perk up, for sure!!!!

[Mark Carter]

Well,I know there's at least 2 of us would love to hear some of those stories, so if you feel like sharing any..............If you'd rather use email than this forum just say and I'll give you the necessary details. I love the idea of you telling these tales in a restaurant while others are trying to eat! Nice one! Go on, do tell us....................

Cheers,

Mark.

[Last Corpse Standing]

People don't usually believe me, but the soil in a cemetery can vary greatly in type and texture even within fifty feet. Part of the problem where I used to work was that much of the soil was trucked in as fill while the grounds were being developed. Add to that the naturally existing soils, which also could vary greatly, it made for different conditions throughout the cemetery. I remember filling in one grave, and the soil was quite heavy gray clay. It tended to move in big lumps the size, and damn near the weight, of a good size boulder. Unfortunately, there's no way to fill in a grave slowly when the soil is like that. Combine that with a "newfie mahogany" casket (press board covered in fabric), and the casket was destroyed instantly. Ok, so that's no really the worst of it, and actually not all that uncommon. The real problem was that, for whatever reason, there was an inordinately large amount of white powder in the casket. (I'm not exactly sure what it was. maybe talcum powder.) As soon as the casket broke, a huge cloud came rushing up out of the grave and straight into the face of my co-worker who was looking into the grave at the time.

As cemeteries begin to fill up, there becomes an increasing chance that you would be digging beside other people. There have been a couple times I can remember where, as we were digging, the side of the casket beside us broke away, and the person inside rolled out into the new hole. We called this 'coming for a visit.'

In my time I probably was involved in about 20 disinternments. (Digging someone up.) I remember most of them very well. The first one I ever did was a person buried in a very sandy area of the cemetery, so it was quite easy, partially because sandy soil drains well. After we'd dug around the sides of the casket, we used a shovel to gently lift the lid of the casket, and you could see a perfectly intact skeleton. Even the arms were still crossed on the rib cage. The only flaw was that the skull had caved in a bit. It was actually very cool.

I remember one time going to another property in the company to watch a cremation being done. Very cool. The person was in a cardboard box, which burned up immediately, followed by the person's hair. About five minutes in, the body sat up, then slowly returned to a horizontal position.

We had one service in the middle of winter on the side of a hill. The lowering device had been used on a wet grave the day before, so the straps were still wet that morning, and of course, they froze in the cold air. Anyway, the pallbearers put the casket on the lowering device when they got there for the service, and not long after, the casket slid off the frozen straps and on down the hill.

We had lowered one casket into a grave half full of water, and our pump was broken. the casket starting taking on water ala Titanic, but we had to fill it in quickly. Unfortunately, the big load of dirt we tried to dump on the casket to weigh it down, slipped off the side, and in the process, the casket did a barrel roll, the lid popped open, and the body fell out. Oops. We had to stuff her back in the best we could and continue filling the grave.

Guess that's enough for tonight, but check back for updates. Trust me - you cannot fathom the number of weird things we've seen.

LCS

[Brendon Wright]

HA HAaaaaaaa!

I had to read these out to my parents!

They've heard a few similar sort of things in their nearly 70 years, these kind of stories must have a universal fascination....

Apparently bodies being cremated can do that, and it's not because, as I'd thought, the poor cadaver has woken up ala Monty Python.

You think of these things happening in cemeteries as "only in the old days" but perhaps there's something about the dying business that holds fast to antiquity!

Perhaps James Bond will have an ejector seat built into the passenger side of hisAston Martincoffin....

Cheers, I Look forward to more soon.

-Brendon

[Mark Carter]

Ohh yes.................great stuff...............keep 'em coming!!I can take a lot of this sort of entertainment, and I know there's a man in NZ who feels the same way, so we shall indeed keep checking back for updates. Thanks a lot for sharing this with us: it made a great start to my day!! Have a good one.

Cheers,

Mark.

[Mark Carter]

I think there's also a dark sense of humour in any job where there can be danger or stress, as in the police, fire services, paramedics etc. For many years one of our closest friends was a policeman, and he used to tell us some great tales. For example..............

After a period of heavy rain and flooding, a woman phoned to say that her husband had gone out in the car many hours before and had not returned, and she was concerned for his safety. The police were very busy, so our friend was teamed with the local police inspector (the man in charge in our area) who normally didn't go out on cases but would be deskbound. Anyway, they went out and finally found the man's car. stuck on a ford (place where the road crosses a normally small stream by driving through it.) The stream was now a raging torrent, the car wa there and the side door was open, but no sign of the driver. They followed the obvious course, which was to walk along the field near the stream (now a river) looking as they went. Sure enough, they eventually spotted what looked like a body, hooked up on an overhanging branch of a tree.

One of them went back to the car to fetch a rope with a grappling hook on the end, as this was the only way they were likely to get hold of the body and pull it to shore. After a couple of throws, the inspector scored a direct hit, with the grappling hook bouncing off the head of the body to the sound ofa loud thud.

"Christ: I hope he's dead," says our friend.

"Well, the bugger is now!" says the inspector, as they hauled the body in.

In due course there had to be an inquest on the death, and the coroner, looking at the photos of the body, said that he was puzzled as to why there should be all these marks on the head, since the man had actually drowned. The police had to suggest that he must have banged his head when the force of the water washed him out of his car, and eventually the coroner was satisfied, but it all goes to show.......where humans are concerned anything can happen, and what you read in the papers may in fact have a hidden sub-text. Ain't Life fun?

Cheers,

Mark.

[Last Corpse Standing]

Not long before I left that job, we had a service set up near the Peace monument. The funeral procession filed in, and people began to get out of their cars to head to graveside. One woman ended up parking near a garden that was comprised of three rings of circular shrubs. As she went to get her children from the car, she looked in the shrubs and noticed a man kneeling over with his head on the ground. Not wanting her children to see it, and supposing him a local homeless man, she went to graveside and informed the funeral director of the situation. He came over and discovered the man was dead. An ambulance was called and they discovered that the man had been in the bushes for at least 12 hours, which meant overnight and then some. It turns out he had had a heart attack. In his briefcase (no - he wasn't a homeless man) were some medications for both high blood pressure and high cholesterol. OK, so it's a bit sad, but us being gravediggers couldn't resist the obvious joke which was the phone call to 9-1-1. Think about it.

"Hello, 9-1-1, what's your emergency?"

"We're here in xxxx cemetery, and there's a dead guy"

"Well no s**t Sherlock" *click*

[Mark Carter]

Yes indeed......another great tale. As you say, a bit sad for those concerned (and where was he from, had his family missed him, what was he doing there etc etc? But you're right, it might have been tricky trying to convince those on the end of 9-1-1: I bet they could tell a few stories, too!

Keep up the good work!

Cheers,

Mark.

[hillgreen2]

When I was in college I was working for an organ builder. We removed an organ from a church which was a transplanted Hillgreen Lane organ dating from around 1953. The organ was going to be scrapped in favor of a new pipe organ. I got the wild idea of building an organ of my own (basically for a practice instrument at the college). The boss let me have the console and the 4 rank swell chest (the larger great chest was too big and in poor shape). Long story short I wound up assembling a 9 rank instrument of various parentage. The college eventually wanted to subdivide the large room the organ was in into smaller office space, so I was given the organ back and lugged it through 3 moves before parting it out.

The 2 comes from the 2 manual console. It was a fairly simple design straight rail rocker tab design for HL but it was built of yellow poplar and very heavy. It was originally covered with a purplish mahogany stain, then in the 70s the church moved and the console was poorly stripped and "antiqued". Under the lights of the newer sanctuary it looked like a dull brown stain, under the florescent lights at college it looked mostly green (ugh). The only kind thing to do was either burn it or paint it gloss black. Multiple coats of gloss black paint later, it looked pretty sharp.

Jeff