E.G. BellI have mentioned in the past that I consider myself an iconoclast. I don’t go looking for arguments or insist on proving my opinions, but some things that are widely practiced/accepted I have little use for. Weddings, graduations, and funerals are examples.
I hold marriage in the highest regard. The ceremony not so much. The same for education. And I am reverent and respectful when it comes to those we lose but not so much for the ceremony of seeing them off. The ceremonies seem to dwarf the things being commemorated.
My parents were divorced in the late 1950s. I don’t remember the ‘ceremony,’ but I do remember the Kennedy/Nixon campaign posters and my dad was no longer in the immediate picture. At that age, I did not see right or wrong. Kids live in the moment. My mom married twice more. My dad did not remarry until I was in the ninth grade. I was not at that ceremony either, but those ceremonies/events are not what I am telling about here.
My stepmother Marie was in the picture before we sold our camp in the forest, and on one trip, at our stop at Hallers, there was a bear that had been preserved along with a sign saying that that bear, a cub, had cost the hunter $200, a fine for shooting an animal that should not have been shot. I’m not a hunter, so I don’t know all the other details about what excludes an animal from exposure to being shot. The reason the whole thing stands out is that my stepmother THOUGHT the display was on sale and she mistakenly read $200 as $20. And she was ready to buy the display. It is a silly thing to remember, but it is one of the few vivid memories I have of her. Some things just stand out, though it is not a memory I revisit often. It just happened to be made here in the forest.
This memory, though, was brought back recently on a trip to Tionesta Builders Supply on Route 36 on the way into Tionesta. I walked in one day and was startled to see a large dog sitting in the aisle. I’m not big on big dogs, especially ones that are quiet. You get no visual cues as to what such dogs are thinking. Potential DANGER. “Leave sleeping dogs lie” is a saying for a reason. I spent a minute or so eyeing the dog to get some clue about the possible threat. It did not move. At some point, I came to the conclusion that this business would not allow a dog that posed any threat to customers, so I gathered myself and walked toward it. It did not move. It could not, as I came to realize, because it was ‘stuffed.’ The work of a skilled taxidermist. Just like the bear in Hallers that caught my stepmother’s eye those years ago. There are other ‘trophies’ in this establishment, but most are only heads. This dog was in a whole different context, and it truly looks ‘natural’.
My disdain for funeral ceremony led me long ago to decide on cremation. I know that this is not something my family can do on their own. (My fire pit is large but I know without doing actual research that that would not be legal even if it were somehow appropriate). That means I cannot completely exclude the funeral industry, but I have made sure everyone knows there will be no viewing. That is not the memory I want to leave of myself. I might feel differently (I doubt it) if the work of those who prepare bodies for funerals did the kind of work done by taxidermists. Roy Roger’s horse Trigger was stuffed and mounted at the Roy Rogers And Dale Evans Museum.
If this could be done for me with the same realistic result, I might consider it. (My wife said they would only have to do the back half) I could be immortalized in a forest diorama in my backyard. Not a big leap from a statue. It would certainly be different. This is already done, in a way, with the body of Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Soviet Union and co-author of The Communist Manifesto. His situation is a bit high-maintenance for me, bringing back the issue of expense.
I have also always eschewed ceremony for graduations. The “walk.” I have had five occasions where I chose not to ‘walk’ to get my diploma. I’m sure my family was disappointed when I graduated high school and skipped the ceremony. I felt I had dodged an unpleasant bullet. This was not so much about expense but about extravagant attention. I have always found it uncomfortable and unpleasant. In every case, I got my diploma. I just chose to forego the pomp and circumstance.
I was with my wife for each of her graduations (high school, bachelor’s, and master’s) and happy for her. Her bachelor’s degree was my first time seeing the pageantry of a college graduation ceremony and the robes and caps on the professors. It always struck me that they should have been juggling. I kept that to myself because it was important to my wife. And later to my adults. I don’t force my disdain for iconic ceremonies on them.
There are religious bases for the way people choose to conduct weddings and funerals. There are probably religious components to graduations, though offhand I can’t think of them. My problem with all of them has always been extravagance and expense, and I sense also a one-up component where each has to be bigger than the one before. I apologize to anyone who might be put off by what might seem to be irreverence for these solemn ceremonies. I don’t agitate for others to embrace my way of thinking and I would never imply that people who disagree are wrong or less in any way. My way has certainly been ‘one less traveled by.’ I have not found that it made any difference at all in the long view.
