Instructions for my Funeral

January 16th, 2007

This month I will be seventy-nine. Although I know of no immediate threats to my mortality, it always pays to be prepared. Everyone should have a will and have his/her finances in reasonable order.

The occasion for this column is the funeral of Gerald Ford. For what seems like all year I have been trying to avoid funeral coverage on CNN. After all, the news is that he is still dead. President Ford, according to practically every commentator, was a nice decent guy who was exactly what the country needed to follow the mess Nixon created. I dispute that proposition. He was indeed nice and decent, but the feeling was at the time that he had been hit on the head once too often while playing football. I still believe that was true. Aside from being nice and decent, he was a nonentity and not too bright at that. I like to believe that the presidency requires really bright men who are great leaders. Of course, the present president has failed on both scores, but nevertheless . . . But I digress.

When I die, I don’t want a 17-gun salute. Indeed, not even a cap pistol. I worried when those canons were being fired on the White House lawn that they would wipe out the Treasury Department. On the other hand, with taxes coming up, perhaps I shouldn’t have worried. Nor do I want an elaborate ceremony in the National Cathedral complete with endless military in, presumably, a place of peace. On the other hand, not to worry, I am personally ineligible. No one needs to take my body by limo and Air Force One to my library. It has a few good books, particularly a few copies of my novel Making Harriet, but I really don’t expect people to visit either the library or my grave on the property.

If truth be told, I would thoroughly enjoy a parade on Main Street in Hellertown. The parade might be led by my friend Mayor Fluck whom I once dubbed “Batman” because he did single handedly some really good things for the Borough. Flanking the mayor might be Anne Marie Gonzales and Lanita Lum, two editors for whom I wrote columns. When I left the Valley Voice to go with Lanita’s paper, Anne Marie accused me of perfidy for which she has never forgiven me and of which I am innocent. The irony is that Lanita fired me about a year later for being a pain in the ass. Early on I had the nerve to suggest that she fight an attempt by then Borough Manager Jim Sigworth to prevent her from publishing on Main Street. When she sold the paper to the Berks-Mont chain and continued to supervise it, she wanted B-M to own my copyrights even though I wrote for free! I guess I am a pain in the ass.

My thought is that the Hellertown and Lower Saucon police departments might serve as honor guards. The truth is that I have published criticisms of both departments and their chiefs, Bob Balum and Guy Lesser respectively. Accordingly, this would be a grand gesture on their parts. Balum I have always found to be very slow on the uptake. Lesser has certainly been duplicitous. I once accused his department of only giving tickets to the young, the black, and those driving red cars. I still think this is true. Once, on a New Year’s Eve several years ago, my son Justin gave a party in our barn. Everyone at the party was over drinking age and there certainly was liquor there, but no fuss. The Saucon police investigated a robbery that took place about 400 yards away. They tracked the robber, who took several bottles of liquor, cordials and the like, to the road that intersects 100 yards from the barn through the snow. There the trail ended. Seizing on a live party, they raided my barn at 3am, and insisted that they see the owner of the property. When Justin awoke me with this demand, I told him to go back and tell the cops that if they wanted to see me, they could damn well walk through the snow to our house. Needless to say, they didn’t do that but they did, completely without a warrant or probable cause, enter the barn and required the guests to show their bottom of their shoes and present their ids. Needless to say, they found nothing. The next morning two Saucon cops appeared at the house to ask me if I knew anything about the robbery! I accused them of covering their asses and they left. At my request, Lesser investigated and found (surprise!) that the cops had acted properly.

After the police honor guard, I would like the Saucon Valley High School marching band to follow playing fight songs. Seriously, they are a really good group. When I was on the school board, I helped preserve their funding. I was defeated last year by no-tax nincompoops who nevertheless had to raise taxes as was perfectly obvious to anyone with the mildest interest in the district. In passing, I do not regret being defeated. Having done your best, in a democracy you have to accept the idea that the voters are often foolish and elect fools. Moreover, I wouldn’t have wanted to serve with any of the people elected.

Finally, I hope the hearse is supplied by David Heintzelman. He is one of the really good guys in town. Unfortunately he stayed away from running for the school board because it might affect his business. Indeed, he had a point, it might have. But unless the community is able to co-opt good men like Dave, not only will our taxes go up, but our schools will go down taking our property values with them.

If these arrangements can’t be worked out, I hope my wife will have Heintzelman’s pick up the body, offer it to the flames and scatter my ashes in the Saucon Creek. I love that creek and I am acutely conscious of the need not to pollute the creek. Good citizen that I am, the ashes will merely serve as food for the trout. Despite the No Fishing signs on our property, I actually like fishermen. The problem is that many of them litter. Oh well, after a long life the one thing I’ve learned is that you can’t solve everything.