Word: caskets
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...spring of 2005, a glossy black trailer 53 ft. long began wending its way on a national tour. It contains a singular exhibit: the latest and coolest in casket designs from the country's leading manufacturer, Batesville. The exhibit opens with the Maserati of departure vehicles--the 540-lb., $18,500 Marsellus 700 Masterpiece. Although the Marsellus defines tradition (Ronald Reagan was buried in one, but then so was the Notorious B.I.G.), what follows focuses on the four trends that have rocked the casket industry: obesity, personalization, cost competition and cremation. Local funeral directors wandering through the exhibit examine...
Demographically speaking, the future looks bright for the $3.5 billion casket industry. Over the next 20 years, the baby-boom generation, despite its considerable efforts to the contrary, will start to meet mortality, swelling the death rate in the U.S. from 2.4 million a year to 3.2 million. By 2040, annual deaths are forecast to hit 4.1 million. You'd think the big casketmakers--Batesville, York and Aurora, which together produce at least 70% of all caskets sold in the U.S.--would be resting easy...
...star's performing in Westminster Abbey. But when John, accompanying himself on the piano, began singing the words "Goodbye, England's rose," guests inside the abbey seemed caught up in music and message. Prince Harry, who like his brother had kept his composure while walking behind their mother's casket, buried his face in his hands and sobbed during the song. Outside, people held candles, their flames flickering in the wind...
...four of us struggled to "papoose" the boy - strapping him down to a casket-shaped plywood board with big thick Velcro flaps - so firmly that he would be safely immobilized while I injected, cleansed, trimmed and sutured. Without the wiggling this was not too hard. With him still awake it was an acceptable struggle, far less dangerous than a general anesthetic for a medically unknown toddler with a full stomach...
...then, there was something more to remember. "I don't want us to forget that there's a woman in there," said President Clinton, standing in front of her casket beneath a mountain of flowers. Not just a symbol and a role model, he said, though she surely was that, but a woman who "lived and breathed and got angry and got hurt and had dreams and disappointments." And so it's worth remembering that of all the moments when she stood at history's hinge, one of the most important was when she was most human, most vulnerable...