June 26, 2025 • 27 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
The discussion is strange burial requests occasioned by and we'll
go skip John, Paul, Joseph, So hang tight, we'll get
to you occasioned by. Back in April, eighty eight year
old Pope Francis passed and his request to the Vatican
was a very simple burial. And we were talking as
(00:25):
a show team, Jim, Darryl, chad Oconi, Nunkanishi, myself Ramon
Robles about strange burial requests or atypical burial requests, and
we ran out of time and we wanted to get
to some more of these, so we'll take them in
that order.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Skip what's yours?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Good mornings are lost one of my lifelong besties two
years ago, six months before our fiftieth reunion high school reunion,
and went to his funeral and still grieving about losing
this guy we raised two doors down from each other.
I had no idea what gay was when I was
in high school, and nobody else did. But he turns
(01:08):
out he was gay and the funniest man that lived.
He would make any stand up comedian look bad today.
And he basically smoked himself to death and died at
the age of sixty eight. But I went to his
funeral and three of his buddies got up and eulogized him,
or as I used to say, eurologized him, and it
(01:30):
was amazing. Chaz got up and he said, you know,
I love Freddy and we used to garden together, and
we loved the garden. And I would get out there
with him and we'd hoe and rake and plant the
beautiful flowers. And if I had his ashes, I'd sprinkle
them all over my garden. And then Philip got up
and he said, you know, Freddy and I sailed together,
(01:53):
and we love to sail, and he loved sailing. And
if I had his ashes, I'd sprinkle them all over
the Gulf of America. And then Rod Reid got up
and he said, you know, Freddy and I love to
cook together. And he said, we'd love making spicy hot chili.
And I'll tell you what, if I had his ashes,
(02:14):
I'd put him in a pot of chili so it
could tear my ass up one more time.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
You know.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
He Uh, he definitely pulled. He pulled it off of
a straight face, and we got to give him credit.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Uh, let's go to John, John, what's your strange burial?
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Request, yes, uh see pick apart. The direct kind of
movie he directed called uh The Bower Cable Hoag and
into the final scenes, the main character, Chason Wobart, was
(03:00):
close to death and he says, well, you know, dying
is not the hard part.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
You know, I'm not afraid of dying, but I want
to know what they're going to say about me. So
he had a very credible minister who's a character in
the film give his euigy while he was still alive.
(03:36):
So I thought that was kind of interesting look at death.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, it's uh, I'm fascinated by how cultures deal with death,
and I think it's it's interesting to see the various
ways that we deal with something and eventuality that we're
all going to experience and and a very profound thing.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
You know.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Some people don't market really at all, and some people
have pomp and circumstances. Some people celebrate, and some people mourn,
and some people it's it's a very interesting, it's a
very interesting thing. It's and it's it's a big part
of life. In the same way that that we have
cultural markers for birth and for marriage and for manhood
(04:25):
and womanhood, so too we have we have this one.
It's very interesting, Brett, you're up. What's yours?
Speaker 6 (04:34):
My father passed away many years ago, and his one
of his last ten years of his life, he he
liked to hand out two dollar bills, mainly to kids
at family reunions or whatever. So he always carried a
pocket full of two dollar bills, and we put these
two dollar bills in his in his obituary bulletin for
(04:56):
the funeral, and so everyone got a two dollar bill
at the you know, at the funeral. So they thought
that was cool. So at five hundred bucks, who cares?
It was a neat little gesture. I did have a
(05:17):
morbid curiosity like you with the what's the weirdest request?
So I asked the funeral director and he told me
the weirdest one he ever had was he buried a
very big man and the guy wanted beer in his casket,
so they put almost two kegs of beer. It took
about twelve guys to carry him to the grave. It's
all funny games unless you're and so it was sloshing
(05:40):
around in the casket, and it was all funny unless
you were on the on the Paul Bearer crew. So
but anyway, that was.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Think of something. If you look up.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Paul Bearer's drop casket, there's.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
You know, there's the algorithms. Now.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I saw one a couple of weeks ago where they're
walking toward the hole and you know, they put down
that artificial turf, the green turf to get you there,
and somebody slipped on it.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It had a little it had a little slack in it.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Somebody slipped on it and they fell into the hole
with the casket. Thank goodness, the casket went first and
them on top of it because they couldn't get their
hands pulled loose from the carrying rack.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
But they all go in together. It is I mean,
it's funny now, but it wasn't funny for the people.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Probably somebody probably broke a at least a finger, wrist,
elbow something out of the deal.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
It was not pretty to watch. That is that it's
funny for us to watch.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
I'm saying it was probably not pretty if you were
there at the time. Listen, I've been a pallbearer, and
I'm gonna tell you something. The choice of who a
Paul Bearer is going to be is made for all
the wrong reasons. It's an honor you know that you
give to a person in the family that he's going
to be Uncle Buster's Paul bearer. But sometimes that is
(07:14):
done without regard to your ability to carry your end
of a very heavy, heavy casket. And well, yeah, you
can imagine what could go wrong. Paul, you're on the
Michael Berry Show. What is the strange burial request you
have or you have witnessed?
Speaker 7 (07:34):
My wife and I went to pre need Counseling, signed
up for a final, final process, and she talks me
into if I precede her, She talks me into.
Speaker 8 (07:56):
A casson orse drawn casket here at the Houston Veterans Cemetery.
And I tried to talk her out of it, and
bless her heart, she said, this is for your children
(08:16):
and your grandchildren's closure. But bless her heart, she wants
me to take her ashes if she if she dies
before me out to Hunter Peak in Guadalupe Mountains National
Park and when the wind is blowing right, let her
ashes blow right back into good old Texas.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
How about that? How about that? That's a good story.
Let's go finally to Joseph. Joseph, You're only Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Go ahead, sir, hery good mornings are.
Speaker 9 (08:54):
My father passed away probably in old four December of four,
but we had an old fashioned and Irish wake for him,
which after he got back from the enbalmers, we laid
him out in the living room of the house in
his casket, open casket for a week, and the neighbors,
(09:14):
his friends and family could stop by at their own
convenience and say goodbye, and you know, I wish there
they're farewells to him, And to me it was it
was kind of a neat thing because I was I
stayed there the whole week and and got a lot
of closure just sitting around having a beer with him
and talking to him, even though he couldn't talk back.
(09:37):
But uh, it's a lot different than just walking by
somebody at the funeral home for for five minutes for
two seconds, you know, you you have more time to
uh to really say goodbye. And it was a it
was a real blessing to me.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, I think that's uh, that's that's that's what the
process is supposed to be about, right to bring closure
for the living in something that can be very very emotional.
The subject was strange burial requests, and we went to
(10:17):
break with a full board of calls, and we held
some of them over. Having gone through a few of those,
I got a lot of emails, and I felt like,
if you take the time to write the email, then
I'm going to try to share those and I'm just
going to pull a few of those out to share
with you on this bonus podcast reminder. A bonus podcast
(10:39):
is content that did not air on the radio that
we did just for the podcast. So if you're looking,
if you're a regular listener to the radio show and
you use the podcast to supplement and go back to
things that you missed, you can always go to bonus
first for things that you know you missed because it
(11:00):
hasn't aired yet. William Wrights had the father of a
close friend that had at his funeral played Elvis' music
the whole service. Turns out, my friend's father was Elvis's
escort when he was assigned to Germany while in the
US Army. For the first two years, whenever they went
to an Elvis show in Vegas, they were seated in
the front row. I enjoyed this topic. Lindo writes, my
(11:25):
husband wants to be cremated, have his ashes put into
fireworks and shot over a pond on our ranch while
bagpipes play amazing grace only one issue to grant all
that wish we just sold the ranch. Well maybe put
that into terms, I guess. Doug Wright Sam Houston up
in Huntsville will accept bodies for science at their criminology department.
(11:48):
My deceased father in law's body was donated at his
request with minimal red tape. They laid him down to
rest in the cadaver decomposition Decomposition study field. That was
in reference to where the bodies go that are donated
to science. Jacob Rights being a part of an ocean
reef for eternity. I thought this was pretty cool and
(12:11):
something I might consider later on. I will give you
the link to what he posted, which was eternal reefs
dot com eternal reefs dot com. Darryl Kunda on our
team says, I've been to the Moravia store. It's a great,
tiny little dive bar.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
I like Moravian culture. Raman, do you Texas State has
a body? What which Moravian it's it's the old Czech
families that came in west of west of Houston. There's
several There is a community called Moravia, but there are
lots of Moravian descendants there. Texas State has a body
(12:55):
farm where people take their cadaver dogs to train to
find dead bodies. They do various things to the bodies,
like burning them or leaving them out in the elements.
Bodies can be donated. Hmm, yeah, you drive a hard bargain.
Funeral requests and Bible studies. Seven years back, a gentleman's
request was to be cremated and put into a douche
(13:20):
bottle so his wife could run him through her one
more time. Sorry for the spelling. Okay, all right, okay.
My husband's family are lot Via immigrants, and their funeral
tradition is to take photos of the dead person in
the coffin. At the appropriate point in the service, all
pass in front of the open coffin and take pictures.
(13:43):
We have lots of pictures of unknown dead people in caskets.
I told you there's strange traditions. Brent writes, I would
like to have an outdoor funeral, have my body strapped
to a parachute and drop from a plane and land
at the cemetery, hopefully close to the hole in the ground. Okay,
(14:06):
let see Genie rights. Not all these can be read.
Check out the option in Texas to decompose naturally in
big tanks. The family can visit and then be given
containers of composts that the deceased person of the deceased
person to use.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
In the yard.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
In Austin, I don't know the name of the facility
wrapped in willow basket allowed to decompose naturally. Trees planted
on the decease. New trend is no funeral or memorial.
I saw a story on that sometime back. You got
to get licensing for that. But they have these kind
of free range cemeteries and so the body will be
(14:44):
placed out there and decomposed naturally or with the assistance
of buzzards or whatever else. The Zoroastrians, which is a
group out of originally out of Iran, they ended up
being driven into India. In Bombay, they have a and
(15:04):
I still call it Bombay, and we'll always call it Bombay.
They have what's called what's known as the Tower of Silence,
and what it is is a tall silo. My wife
took me by there and inside the silo there is
no roof. You just see the perimeter of the silo.
It's taller than the other buildings around. But you notice
(15:25):
a lot of birds flying in to the inside that
silo from the top, and they hang the dead bodies
of the Zoriastrians, and the birds come and they pecked
them away until they're gone. The Zoroastrians are the group
(15:46):
originally from Iran that Freddie Mercury's family were part of
in India. They ended up in Tanzania. I think they
ended up in East Africa, but they his family, as
you know, were Indians. David writes, a few years ago,
my nephew in high school lost his life. His surviving
(16:07):
was in the Special Forces. John had his little brother's
ashes made into a small capsule to wear around his
neck throughout his service to our country. Bobby writes that
sixty four ferrari that the woman was buried in would
be worth about four hundred dollars today in today's market.
(16:27):
Certainly not the most desirable ferrari since it's a force eater,
but a beautiful sixties ferrari nonetheless, and that story if
you didn't hear our show live on the air. Was
a woman who died in nineteen seventy seven. A socialite,
she was buried in San Anton in a white nightgown
(16:50):
or negligee, It's unclear in her sixty four ferrari and
they actually lowered the ferrari into a concrete case to
keep grave robbers from come grave diggers from coming in
robbing it. Roy says, from my experience as a death
investigator with the Harris County Medical Examiner, regardless if you
are a registered organ donor life gift still has to
(17:13):
get permission from your legal next of ken.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
They will make the decision.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
On a side note, they can take your corneas without
your permission by law. If your body goes to the
medical Examiner, they can snatch your cornia unless you put
your name on the no take list with the Eye Bank. Well,
they don't want my corneas anyway. I can guarantee you that.
Robbie writes, my step cousin loved fishing and was excellent
(17:40):
at carpentry and building things such as cabinets, pantries, tables.
They had him in jeans and flannel shirt with a
pencil behind his ear, a tape measure on his pocket,
and a Roden reel in his casket. Okay, Mark says,
my brother worked in maintenance at Disneyland and people will
dump ashes in It's a small World, or the Haunted Mansion,
(18:04):
amongst other places. He had to vacuum it all up.
Do you know where that is? You're a Disney guy. Okay,
well that would be unpleasant. I'll tell you. My wife,
being from India, the Ganges, which is considered a holy river,
people will will pour the ashes in the Ganges. And
(18:24):
it's a filthy river to start with, but it's even
more filthy. You'll see what looks like somebody emptied out
a vacuum cleaner when ashes are dumped in, and it's very,
very nasty. Christopher writes, there's a company that makes artificial
reef structures that will mix your ashes in the concrete
of said structures. This would allow me to fish forever,
(18:46):
and my kids could fish with me whenever they wanted.
Patrick writes, oh, that's something unrelated to this. Bobby Knight's
request was when he left Indiana as head coach, I
told the press he wanted to be buried upside down
so they could all kiss his ass. Trip Zivy says,
(19:09):
I want to be buried under a sapling live oak
so my remains grow into a wise old oak. All right,
Terry says my husband and I enjoy your show like you.
I'm a fan of celebrations of life. When a deer
one passes, when I pass I want a few things
at my celebration. One of those air filled advertising columns
(19:29):
that have a face and arms and wave around. It's
called a wind socket or wind sock. They make me laugh,
and I want people to remember to laugh amidst their tears. Secondly,
I want my son in law to tell a.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Few dad jokes.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
We are lovers of dry humor. Lastly, when I'm cremated,
I want a vial of glitter added to the ashes
so that when it is tossed, my ashes will sparkle.
Thanks for your spectacular show.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Becky writes.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
My granny's friends were passing away, and every time she
attended their services, she said there was always a fly
buzzing the casket. So she asked to have a flyswater
in her casket. And on the day of her surface service,
we placed a flyswater in her casket and not one
fly was seen. Well, how about that, Brian Wrights. Ever
see that eighties movie sob They kidnapped the body from
(20:20):
the funeral home and put it in a dingy in
a dinghy, sorry, in a dinghy, launched it and shot
flaming arrows at it. Jason writes, my mentor in the
law was Tom Locke, who passed from cancer almost two
years ago. His final wish was to have his ashes
put into the tailpipe of his Harley Davidson and blown
out into the park where him and his retired military
(20:43):
working dog played. Rick says Michael. A few years ago,
I had a good friend roommate that was famous in
his social circle for always being late. Anywhere he went,
people would often say the old cliche scratch he was seven, sorry, stretch, stretch,
he was six y three, will be late to his
(21:04):
own funeral. He told me a couple of times that
in the event of his passing, he wanted me to
hijack the hers so that it could be said that
he truly was late to his own funeral. Michael writes,
when my pops was sick with cancer, he went to
the cemetery with my mother to pick out burial plots.
When he found out the cost, he said, to just
(21:25):
bury him deeper in the ground so there's room for
my mom in the same single plot. He did request
that when my mom dies, to dig him up place
her at the bottom, as he never liked her. On
top true story, Ben says, we went to high school together.
He's just telling about Coach Pivato, our football our high
school football coach. When Coach Piveto died, at his burial,
his sons told people that they could leave, but that
(21:48):
anyone that stayed would be able to help shovel dirt.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Back onto the grave.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
I was able to throw a few scoops in myself,
and that was only That was the only time.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
At a burial I ever saw that. I'm about that.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Kathy writes, my mom just passed away this spring. She
didn't want to have a funeral. She always loved having
an afternoon coffee and something sweet to eat, Georgia peach.
But we lived in Beaumont, Texas since the seventies, so
that's what we did. She planned everything. It was called
Barbara's Last Afternoon Coffee. Just wanted to share at my
(22:22):
mother's funeral. She didn't ask for this, but she had
asked my wife ears before. My mother and father wanted
to pay for their own tombstone. It's important to them
that they not leave us any burdens. So she asked
my mom, and she asked my wife. My mom asked
my wife, what should I have put on my headstone?
(22:44):
She asked everybody, but nobody else paid attention to her request.
And my wife said, well, you love to read, so
how about you do Oh the Places We'll go? The
line from doctor Seuss And my mother loved it, and
so that was on her on her tombstone. Well, when
she passed, she was ready to go, and she said, Michael,
(23:05):
she called my wife and I to the to the
hospital late at night. She was in Houston and she'd
just gotten some really bad news. She had lou Garrig's disease,
a version of lou Gererig's disease, and it was she
was basically dying from within. It was very painful, and
she'd had a very painful procedure that day and said,
I want to go home. I don't want any more medicine.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
I want to die.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
So they told us it could be three or four days,
it could be two weeks.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
But it won't be long if that. If she does that,
doctors gave their.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Blessing, not that they needed to, but they agreed it was.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
She was in bad shape.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
So my wife the next morning, we couldn't do it. It
was almost midnight, so we called an ambulance company we knew,
and my wife went and rode with her back to
Orange in the ambulance, and which my wife said was
very uncomfortable that thing. They were driving fast and it
was knocking around. I sped in the Orange before them
(24:02):
to tell my dad, good news, Mom's coming home from
the hospital today. Bad news is she's gonna die. And
so that was. That was a lot to process and
to get the house ready for her arrival. Anyway, so
she said she had told us what she wanted for
the funeral, and that was, you know, she didn't want
(24:25):
anybody but the immediate families. She didn't want a big deal.
She didn't want to announce, she didn't want people to
come and look at her body and all that. So
I honored that wish. But my wife's idea was we
bought every copy. There were only twenty people at the funeral.
They're only supposed to be five or six. But you
know a few of her friends found.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Out about it.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Anyway, So we read from doctor Seuss, Oh the places
we'll go, and I thought that was a really nice
It was something she would have approved of. So anyway,
David Gay Dave says, they Viking funeral. They send them
out in a boat and then an archer shoots a
flaming era into the boat. That was a reference to
(25:03):
Chance Mock, the former ut In Woodland's quarterback, saying he
wanted a Viking funeral. Mike writes, I moved from Vegas
in twenty one to Dickinson. I enjoy fishing and shark
fishing quite a bit. I requested my family to cut
me up in chunks to be used for bait. Fly
me out on a drone, drop me and watched via
(25:24):
first person view FPF. Family enjoyed dinner. It's on me
tonight for the last time. Don't cremate me so you
can blow me one last time. Don't bury me as
the land is only for a one hundred year rental.
Okay Czar, here's some strange funeral requests that I saw
out of Ania musicians, and it was it's too complicated to.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Read on the air.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Robert writes A choir friend died several years ago and
requested that the choir and the attendees close the service
by singing the Hallelujah. Cour it was marvelous. Troy says,
good morning, Zara. I have my funeral planned and I
want people to walk out, saying that was the most
fun funeral I've ever had. I want the casket wheeled
(26:12):
in with pall bearers swaying the casket while Spirit in
the Sky is still playing. Bill says, oh, it's a
long I can't get all that in there. Miriam says,
we live in Andalusia, Alabama. And when he handed the
clerk his mail in ballot, he asked her if she
was a Democrat. She said, I'm sorry, I'm not, and
(26:34):
he jumped for joy. He passed November first and was
buried on election day. Joe says Stevie ray Vaughn, Willie
the Wimp and his Cadillac coffin.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
That is a good tune.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
I can't play that here because we can't use music
on a podcast. But in any case, last one, Lawrence writes,
I'm alignment at center point. There's a guy Joe that
retired and his dying wish was to be cremated and
put and a doll. There we go again, that same
joke again, and I think we'll stop there. How about that?
(27:09):
You can always send me an email Michael Berryshow dot com.
It says, send Michael an email. You can request information
on our Palm Beach trip, which will be at the
end of October, and you'll get an answer from Emily
on that. You can buy our merch and you can sign.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Up for our daily blast.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
That's all at Michael Berryshow dot com.
The discussion is strange burial requests occasioned by and we'll
go skip John, Paul, Joseph, So hang tight, we'll get
to you occasioned by. Back in April, eighty eight year
old Pope Francis passed and his request to the Vatican
was a very simple burial. And we were talking as
(00:25):
a show team, Jim, Darryl, chad Oconi, Nunkanishi, myself Ramon
Robles about strange burial requests or atypical burial requests, and
we ran out of time and we wanted to get
to some more of these, so we'll take them in
that order.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Skip what's yours?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Good mornings are lost one of my lifelong besties two
years ago, six months before our fiftieth reunion high school reunion,
and went to his funeral and still grieving about losing
this guy we raised two doors down from each other.
I had no idea what gay was when I was
in high school, and nobody else did. But he turns
(01:08):
out he was gay and the funniest man that lived.
He would make any stand up comedian look bad today.
And he basically smoked himself to death and died at
the age of sixty eight. But I went to his
funeral and three of his buddies got up and eulogized him,
or as I used to say, eurologized him, and it
(01:30):
was amazing. Chaz got up and he said, you know,
I love Freddy and we used to garden together, and
we loved the garden. And I would get out there
with him and we'd hoe and rake and plant the
beautiful flowers. And if I had his ashes, I'd sprinkle
them all over my garden. And then Philip got up
and he said, you know, Freddy and I sailed together,
(01:53):
and we love to sail, and he loved sailing. And
if I had his ashes, I'd sprinkle them all over
the Gulf of America. And then Rod Reid got up
and he said, you know, Freddy and I love to
cook together. And he said, we'd love making spicy hot chili.
And I'll tell you what, if I had his ashes,
(02:14):
I'd put him in a pot of chili so it
could tear my ass up one more time.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
You know.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
He Uh, he definitely pulled. He pulled it off of
a straight face, and we got to give him credit.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Uh, let's go to John, John, what's your strange burial?
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Request, yes, uh see pick apart. The direct kind of
movie he directed called uh The Bower Cable Hoag and
into the final scenes, the main character, Chason Wobart, was
(03:00):
close to death and he says, well, you know, dying
is not the hard part.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
You know, I'm not afraid of dying, but I want
to know what they're going to say about me. So
he had a very credible minister who's a character in
the film give his euigy while he was still alive.
(03:36):
So I thought that was kind of interesting look at death.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, it's uh, I'm fascinated by how cultures deal with death,
and I think it's it's interesting to see the various
ways that we deal with something and eventuality that we're
all going to experience and and a very profound thing.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
You know.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Some people don't market really at all, and some people
have pomp and circumstances. Some people celebrate, and some people mourn,
and some people it's it's a very interesting, it's a
very interesting thing. It's and it's it's a big part
of life. In the same way that that we have
cultural markers for birth and for marriage and for manhood
(04:25):
and womanhood, so too we have we have this one.
It's very interesting, Brett, you're up. What's yours?
Speaker 6 (04:34):
My father passed away many years ago, and his one
of his last ten years of his life, he he
liked to hand out two dollar bills, mainly to kids
at family reunions or whatever. So he always carried a
pocket full of two dollar bills, and we put these
two dollar bills in his in his obituary bulletin for
(04:56):
the funeral, and so everyone got a two dollar bill
at the you know, at the funeral. So they thought
that was cool. So at five hundred bucks, who cares?
It was a neat little gesture. I did have a
(05:17):
morbid curiosity like you with the what's the weirdest request?
So I asked the funeral director and he told me
the weirdest one he ever had was he buried a
very big man and the guy wanted beer in his casket,
so they put almost two kegs of beer. It took
about twelve guys to carry him to the grave. It's
all funny games unless you're and so it was sloshing
(05:40):
around in the casket, and it was all funny unless
you were on the on the Paul Bearer crew. So
but anyway, that was.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Think of something. If you look up.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Paul Bearer's drop casket, there's.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
You know, there's the algorithms. Now.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I saw one a couple of weeks ago where they're
walking toward the hole and you know, they put down
that artificial turf, the green turf to get you there,
and somebody slipped on it.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It had a little it had a little slack in it.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Somebody slipped on it and they fell into the hole
with the casket. Thank goodness, the casket went first and
them on top of it because they couldn't get their
hands pulled loose from the carrying rack.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
But they all go in together. It is I mean,
it's funny now, but it wasn't funny for the people.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Probably somebody probably broke a at least a finger, wrist,
elbow something out of the deal.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
It was not pretty to watch. That is that it's
funny for us to watch.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
I'm saying it was probably not pretty if you were
there at the time. Listen, I've been a pallbearer, and
I'm gonna tell you something. The choice of who a
Paul Bearer is going to be is made for all
the wrong reasons. It's an honor you know that you
give to a person in the family that he's going
to be Uncle Buster's Paul bearer. But sometimes that is
(07:14):
done without regard to your ability to carry your end
of a very heavy, heavy casket. And well, yeah, you
can imagine what could go wrong. Paul, you're on the
Michael Berry Show. What is the strange burial request you
have or you have witnessed?
Speaker 7 (07:34):
My wife and I went to pre need Counseling, signed
up for a final, final process, and she talks me
into if I precede her, She talks me into.
Speaker 8 (07:56):
A casson orse drawn casket here at the Houston Veterans Cemetery.
And I tried to talk her out of it, and
bless her heart, she said, this is for your children
(08:16):
and your grandchildren's closure. But bless her heart, she wants
me to take her ashes if she if she dies
before me out to Hunter Peak in Guadalupe Mountains National
Park and when the wind is blowing right, let her
ashes blow right back into good old Texas.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
How about that? How about that? That's a good story.
Let's go finally to Joseph. Joseph, You're only Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Go ahead, sir, hery good mornings are.
Speaker 9 (08:54):
My father passed away probably in old four December of four,
but we had an old fashioned and Irish wake for him,
which after he got back from the enbalmers, we laid
him out in the living room of the house in
his casket, open casket for a week, and the neighbors,
(09:14):
his friends and family could stop by at their own
convenience and say goodbye, and you know, I wish there
they're farewells to him, And to me it was it
was kind of a neat thing because I was I
stayed there the whole week and and got a lot
of closure just sitting around having a beer with him
and talking to him, even though he couldn't talk back.
(09:37):
But uh, it's a lot different than just walking by
somebody at the funeral home for for five minutes for
two seconds, you know, you you have more time to
uh to really say goodbye. And it was a it
was a real blessing to me.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, I think that's uh, that's that's that's what the
process is supposed to be about, right to bring closure
for the living in something that can be very very emotional.
The subject was strange burial requests, and we went to
(10:17):
break with a full board of calls, and we held
some of them over. Having gone through a few of those,
I got a lot of emails, and I felt like,
if you take the time to write the email, then
I'm going to try to share those and I'm just
going to pull a few of those out to share
with you on this bonus podcast reminder. A bonus podcast
(10:39):
is content that did not air on the radio that
we did just for the podcast. So if you're looking,
if you're a regular listener to the radio show and
you use the podcast to supplement and go back to
things that you missed, you can always go to bonus
first for things that you know you missed because it
(11:00):
hasn't aired yet. William Wrights had the father of a
close friend that had at his funeral played Elvis' music
the whole service. Turns out, my friend's father was Elvis's
escort when he was assigned to Germany while in the
US Army. For the first two years, whenever they went
to an Elvis show in Vegas, they were seated in
the front row. I enjoyed this topic. Lindo writes, my
(11:25):
husband wants to be cremated, have his ashes put into
fireworks and shot over a pond on our ranch while
bagpipes play amazing grace only one issue to grant all
that wish we just sold the ranch. Well maybe put
that into terms, I guess. Doug Wright Sam Houston up
in Huntsville will accept bodies for science at their criminology department.
(11:48):
My deceased father in law's body was donated at his
request with minimal red tape. They laid him down to
rest in the cadaver decomposition Decomposition study field. That was
in reference to where the bodies go that are donated
to science. Jacob Rights being a part of an ocean
reef for eternity. I thought this was pretty cool and
(12:11):
something I might consider later on. I will give you
the link to what he posted, which was eternal reefs
dot com eternal reefs dot com. Darryl Kunda on our
team says, I've been to the Moravia store. It's a great,
tiny little dive bar.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
I like Moravian culture. Raman, do you Texas State has
a body? What which Moravian it's it's the old Czech
families that came in west of west of Houston. There's
several There is a community called Moravia, but there are
lots of Moravian descendants there. Texas State has a body
(12:55):
farm where people take their cadaver dogs to train to
find dead bodies. They do various things to the bodies,
like burning them or leaving them out in the elements.
Bodies can be donated. Hmm, yeah, you drive a hard bargain.
Funeral requests and Bible studies. Seven years back, a gentleman's
request was to be cremated and put into a douche
(13:20):
bottle so his wife could run him through her one
more time. Sorry for the spelling. Okay, all right, okay.
My husband's family are lot Via immigrants, and their funeral
tradition is to take photos of the dead person in
the coffin. At the appropriate point in the service, all
pass in front of the open coffin and take pictures.
(13:43):
We have lots of pictures of unknown dead people in caskets.
I told you there's strange traditions. Brent writes, I would
like to have an outdoor funeral, have my body strapped
to a parachute and drop from a plane and land
at the cemetery, hopefully close to the hole in the ground. Okay,
(14:06):
let see Genie rights. Not all these can be read.
Check out the option in Texas to decompose naturally in
big tanks. The family can visit and then be given
containers of composts that the deceased person of the deceased
person to use.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
In the yard.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
In Austin, I don't know the name of the facility
wrapped in willow basket allowed to decompose naturally. Trees planted
on the decease. New trend is no funeral or memorial.
I saw a story on that sometime back. You got
to get licensing for that. But they have these kind
of free range cemeteries and so the body will be
(14:44):
placed out there and decomposed naturally or with the assistance
of buzzards or whatever else. The Zoroastrians, which is a
group out of originally out of Iran, they ended up
being driven into India. In Bombay, they have a and
(15:04):
I still call it Bombay, and we'll always call it Bombay.
They have what's called what's known as the Tower of Silence,
and what it is is a tall silo. My wife
took me by there and inside the silo there is
no roof. You just see the perimeter of the silo.
It's taller than the other buildings around. But you notice
(15:25):
a lot of birds flying in to the inside that
silo from the top, and they hang the dead bodies
of the Zoriastrians, and the birds come and they pecked
them away until they're gone. The Zoroastrians are the group
(15:46):
originally from Iran that Freddie Mercury's family were part of
in India. They ended up in Tanzania. I think they
ended up in East Africa, but they his family, as
you know, were Indians. David writes, a few years ago,
my nephew in high school lost his life. His surviving
(16:07):
was in the Special Forces. John had his little brother's
ashes made into a small capsule to wear around his
neck throughout his service to our country. Bobby writes that
sixty four ferrari that the woman was buried in would
be worth about four hundred dollars today in today's market.
(16:27):
Certainly not the most desirable ferrari since it's a force eater,
but a beautiful sixties ferrari nonetheless, and that story if
you didn't hear our show live on the air. Was
a woman who died in nineteen seventy seven. A socialite,
she was buried in San Anton in a white nightgown
(16:50):
or negligee, It's unclear in her sixty four ferrari and
they actually lowered the ferrari into a concrete case to
keep grave robbers from come grave diggers from coming in
robbing it. Roy says, from my experience as a death
investigator with the Harris County Medical Examiner, regardless if you
are a registered organ donor life gift still has to
(17:13):
get permission from your legal next of ken.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
They will make the decision.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
On a side note, they can take your corneas without
your permission by law. If your body goes to the
medical Examiner, they can snatch your cornia unless you put
your name on the no take list with the Eye Bank. Well,
they don't want my corneas anyway. I can guarantee you that.
Robbie writes, my step cousin loved fishing and was excellent
(17:40):
at carpentry and building things such as cabinets, pantries, tables.
They had him in jeans and flannel shirt with a
pencil behind his ear, a tape measure on his pocket,
and a Roden reel in his casket. Okay, Mark says,
my brother worked in maintenance at Disneyland and people will
dump ashes in It's a small World, or the Haunted Mansion,
(18:04):
amongst other places. He had to vacuum it all up.
Do you know where that is? You're a Disney guy. Okay,
well that would be unpleasant. I'll tell you. My wife,
being from India, the Ganges, which is considered a holy river,
people will will pour the ashes in the Ganges. And
(18:24):
it's a filthy river to start with, but it's even
more filthy. You'll see what looks like somebody emptied out
a vacuum cleaner when ashes are dumped in, and it's very,
very nasty. Christopher writes, there's a company that makes artificial
reef structures that will mix your ashes in the concrete
of said structures. This would allow me to fish forever,
(18:46):
and my kids could fish with me whenever they wanted.
Patrick writes, oh, that's something unrelated to this. Bobby Knight's
request was when he left Indiana as head coach, I
told the press he wanted to be buried upside down
so they could all kiss his ass. Trip Zivy says,
(19:09):
I want to be buried under a sapling live oak
so my remains grow into a wise old oak. All right,
Terry says my husband and I enjoy your show like you.
I'm a fan of celebrations of life. When a deer
one passes, when I pass I want a few things
at my celebration. One of those air filled advertising columns
(19:29):
that have a face and arms and wave around. It's
called a wind socket or wind sock. They make me laugh,
and I want people to remember to laugh amidst their tears. Secondly,
I want my son in law to tell a.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Few dad jokes.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
We are lovers of dry humor. Lastly, when I'm cremated,
I want a vial of glitter added to the ashes
so that when it is tossed, my ashes will sparkle.
Thanks for your spectacular show.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Becky writes.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
My granny's friends were passing away, and every time she
attended their services, she said there was always a fly
buzzing the casket. So she asked to have a flyswater
in her casket. And on the day of her surface service,
we placed a flyswater in her casket and not one
fly was seen. Well, how about that, Brian Wrights. Ever
see that eighties movie sob They kidnapped the body from
(20:20):
the funeral home and put it in a dingy in
a dinghy, sorry, in a dinghy, launched it and shot
flaming arrows at it. Jason writes, my mentor in the
law was Tom Locke, who passed from cancer almost two
years ago. His final wish was to have his ashes
put into the tailpipe of his Harley Davidson and blown
out into the park where him and his retired military
(20:43):
working dog played. Rick says Michael. A few years ago,
I had a good friend roommate that was famous in
his social circle for always being late. Anywhere he went,
people would often say the old cliche scratch he was seven, sorry, stretch, stretch,
he was six y three, will be late to his
(21:04):
own funeral. He told me a couple of times that
in the event of his passing, he wanted me to
hijack the hers so that it could be said that
he truly was late to his own funeral. Michael writes,
when my pops was sick with cancer, he went to
the cemetery with my mother to pick out burial plots.
When he found out the cost, he said, to just
(21:25):
bury him deeper in the ground so there's room for
my mom in the same single plot. He did request
that when my mom dies, to dig him up place
her at the bottom, as he never liked her. On
top true story, Ben says, we went to high school together.
He's just telling about Coach Pivato, our football our high
school football coach. When Coach Piveto died, at his burial,
his sons told people that they could leave, but that
(21:48):
anyone that stayed would be able to help shovel dirt.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Back onto the grave.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
I was able to throw a few scoops in myself,
and that was only That was the only time.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
At a burial I ever saw that. I'm about that.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Kathy writes, my mom just passed away this spring. She
didn't want to have a funeral. She always loved having
an afternoon coffee and something sweet to eat, Georgia peach.
But we lived in Beaumont, Texas since the seventies, so
that's what we did. She planned everything. It was called
Barbara's Last Afternoon Coffee. Just wanted to share at my
(22:22):
mother's funeral. She didn't ask for this, but she had
asked my wife ears before. My mother and father wanted
to pay for their own tombstone. It's important to them
that they not leave us any burdens. So she asked
my mom, and she asked my wife. My mom asked
my wife, what should I have put on my headstone?
(22:44):
She asked everybody, but nobody else paid attention to her request.
And my wife said, well, you love to read, so
how about you do Oh the Places We'll go? The
line from doctor Seuss And my mother loved it, and
so that was on her on her tombstone. Well, when
she passed, she was ready to go, and she said, Michael,
(23:05):
she called my wife and I to the to the
hospital late at night. She was in Houston and she'd
just gotten some really bad news. She had lou Garrig's disease,
a version of lou Gererig's disease, and it was she
was basically dying from within. It was very painful, and
she'd had a very painful procedure that day and said,
I want to go home. I don't want any more medicine.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
I want to die.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
So they told us it could be three or four days,
it could be two weeks.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
But it won't be long if that. If she does that,
doctors gave their.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Blessing, not that they needed to, but they agreed it was.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
She was in bad shape.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
So my wife the next morning, we couldn't do it. It
was almost midnight, so we called an ambulance company we knew,
and my wife went and rode with her back to
Orange in the ambulance, and which my wife said was
very uncomfortable that thing. They were driving fast and it
was knocking around. I sped in the Orange before them
(24:02):
to tell my dad, good news, Mom's coming home from
the hospital today. Bad news is she's gonna die. And
so that was. That was a lot to process and
to get the house ready for her arrival. Anyway, so
she said she had told us what she wanted for
the funeral, and that was, you know, she didn't want
(24:25):
anybody but the immediate families. She didn't want a big deal.
She didn't want to announce, she didn't want people to
come and look at her body and all that. So
I honored that wish. But my wife's idea was we
bought every copy. There were only twenty people at the funeral.
They're only supposed to be five or six. But you
know a few of her friends found.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Out about it.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Anyway, So we read from doctor Seuss, Oh the places
we'll go, and I thought that was a really nice
It was something she would have approved of. So anyway,
David Gay Dave says, they Viking funeral. They send them
out in a boat and then an archer shoots a
flaming era into the boat. That was a reference to
(25:03):
Chance Mock, the former ut In Woodland's quarterback, saying he
wanted a Viking funeral. Mike writes, I moved from Vegas
in twenty one to Dickinson. I enjoy fishing and shark
fishing quite a bit. I requested my family to cut
me up in chunks to be used for bait. Fly
me out on a drone, drop me and watched via
(25:24):
first person view FPF. Family enjoyed dinner. It's on me
tonight for the last time. Don't cremate me so you
can blow me one last time. Don't bury me as
the land is only for a one hundred year rental.
Okay Czar, here's some strange funeral requests that I saw
out of Ania musicians, and it was it's too complicated to.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Read on the air.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Robert writes A choir friend died several years ago and
requested that the choir and the attendees close the service
by singing the Hallelujah. Cour it was marvelous. Troy says,
good morning, Zara. I have my funeral planned and I
want people to walk out, saying that was the most
fun funeral I've ever had. I want the casket wheeled
(26:12):
in with pall bearers swaying the casket while Spirit in
the Sky is still playing. Bill says, oh, it's a
long I can't get all that in there. Miriam says,
we live in Andalusia, Alabama. And when he handed the
clerk his mail in ballot, he asked her if she
was a Democrat. She said, I'm sorry, I'm not, and
(26:34):
he jumped for joy. He passed November first and was
buried on election day. Joe says Stevie ray Vaughn, Willie
the Wimp and his Cadillac coffin.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
That is a good tune.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
I can't play that here because we can't use music
on a podcast. But in any case, last one, Lawrence writes,
I'm alignment at center point. There's a guy Joe that
retired and his dying wish was to be cremated and
put and a doll. There we go again, that same
joke again, and I think we'll stop there. How about that?
(27:09):
You can always send me an email Michael Berryshow dot com.
It says, send Michael an email. You can request information
on our Palm Beach trip, which will be at the
end of October, and you'll get an answer from Emily
on that. You can buy our merch and you can sign.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Up for our daily blast.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
That's all at Michael Berryshow dot com.
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