Uncle Charley Visits The Cemetary

"It's Memorial Day," Uncle Charley said as he ambled up the walk.

"I know," I said. "None of my family is buried in the local cemetary, so I haven't been out there."

"Well, I was out there this morning," Charley sat down on the glider across from me, and poured himself a glass of iced tea from the pitcher.

"Hi, Charley," my wife said from the house. "Help yourself to a glass of tea."

"Thanks, Elaine. I just did."

"I know," she answered.

Charley grinned. "She knows me pretty good, all right".

"Yep," I said. "You been out to the cemetary?"

"Uh-huh. Got me to thinking."

"What a surprise," I commented.

"You know those places are getting flat crowded," he said after a pause. "I had a thought that could save space."

"Cremation?"

"Nah, too many people want to have a marker. You probly want a statue of yerself on a horse, and you ain't the only one."

"So what's your idea?"

"I had a couple, acshully. See, I was driving over here and on the way I saw a big old machine boring a hole in somebody's front yard so's they could put in a big tree. And this thought come to me: why not dig burial holes like that, like you would for a tree or a telephone pole, and then just put the body in feet first?"

I laughed. "It would save room, huh?"

"It would, it would! No question. And with the machine it wouldn't take all that long, either. Just dig the hole, 8 foot deep and 2 and 1/2 foot wide, and in you go. You could put the body in, like, a plastic cigar tube, only the right size, of course, and then to keep it secure pour in a foot or so of concrete and set a plaque in the top of it."

"You got this all worked out, haven't you?"

"I figured out that you could put 8 or more people in the same space that one takes now. Would be a bunch cheaper, too."

"Wouldn't it be crowded? Hard to find your relative in the group?"

"I thought about that, and I had another great idea."

"I'm afraid to ask", I said

"What would be the problem in putting a solar-powered gadget into the concrete, and have it have a little memory chip and a proximity-detector in it? Then when somebody walked by, the chip would say whatever the deceased wanted said. Could be just sayin' his name, or maybe a little poem or somethin' like that. Then a walk in the cemetary could be positively entertaining!"

After I stopped laughing, a thought occurred to me. "Charley, I know you've already thought of something. What do you want your solar-powered tombstone to say?"

"Oh, it might say 'Hi, Harry', 'cause I think you're the only one likely to drop by. Or it could say 'Come back later when I'm not so busy', or 'Ouch, yer steppin' on my head'". Maybe it could have a selection of things to say and pick 'em at random."

I was actually getting interested in his idea. "If you encased the whole works in clear acrylic, the weather wouldn't deteriorate it... it could last for many years."

Charley put his glass down. "I can imagine a time when going to the cemetary would be a downright entertaining and exciting event. As long as it wasn't a one-way trip."

Charley Weighs Tactics vs. Politics

Charley set the sack of groceries on the kitchen table. He pulled a packet of peanuts out of the sack, opened it and sat himself down.

"What do you think about that Osama bin Laden gettin' hisself killed?"

"What do you mean? Don't you think he had it coming?"

"Oh, sure," Charley said. "I ain't sheddin' no tears for him. But we coulda got a lot more mileage out of him if the President didn't need the political boost so bad.

"What kind of mileage are you talking about?" I asked.

"Well, now we got a dead terrorist. And they got a dead martyr. What would it have hurt if we had played it smarter? For instance, suppose we snuck his body out of the country without tellin' nobody, and once we had him back in the US we coulda said 'Hey, we captured bin Laden and we got him in jail in the US, and we're gonna question him for a while before we try him".

"I'm following you so far, you wily old coon-hunter."

"And maybe later we could say we convinced him of the error of his ways, and he's getting ready to rat out all his terrorist buddies. That oughta put the wind up. And we could always threaten to execute him if they was another terrorist attack."

"That all sounds good, Charley. Why do you suppose they didn't do that?"

"Oh, they're smart enough in the CIA to have thunk of this. My guess is that Obama needs the political boost what with elections comin' up in another year. Politicians don't think in terms of long-range anything, except re-elections."

"We ought to put you in charge," I laughed.

"They don't make enough money at the Mint to pay me to do that stuff. But I appreciate the thought."

Charley and the Afterlife

“I been to church again,” Charley said as he plopped himself into the lawn chair.

“Good for you. I thought you were an atheist or agnostic?”

“Agnostic? Nah, I’m never wishy-washy, I got more pride than that. Of course I’m an atheist, but I gotta see what the other side is thinking about, don’t I?”

“Well, what are they thinking about?” I asked, knowing that Charley had his answers all prepared.

“They was talking about the after-life, you know. They got all these ideas that really don’t make any sense unless you already made up yer mind to believe ‘em.”

“Such as?”

“They say they’re gonna see each other, see all their old friends and family. Don’t say what they’re gonna see ‘em with. And they say we're gonna know each other. As far as I know, memories have to have something to be kept in, and we know all that physical stuff is gonna stay right here.”

“I think part of the reason people long for an afterlife is because they really can’t imagine not continuing on in some way or another. We’re pretty important in our own eyes. Surely we can’t just… stop.”

“Don’t know why not,” Charley said. “The universe has been going on almost 14 billion years, I read somewhere. Passed like a blink to me. I don’t think the next 14 billion years will be any slower. I really think that people think they’ll go on forever because they can’t imagine stopping, and at the same time the idea of going on forever is pretty darn frightening. I couldn’t stand being around my ex-wife for more than 5 minutes, and if I had to put up with her forever…”

“So what’s your theory about why we imagine an afterlife?”

“Lack of imagination, mostly,” Charley said. “Once you say there’s an afterlife, you have to come up with reasons for how it works and who gets to go there and what there is to do once yer there. Most religions have come up with a description of heaven that sounds a lot like what the rich people in their home towns already have. Sounds pretty arbitrary to me, but then I’m not plannin’ on going there”.

“Doesn’t that scare you?” I asked.

“Nope,” Charley said. “I’m not scared of going to sleep at night either. When my machinery ain't working or on stand-by, I’m not there to see it. Time don’t mean anything when the clock's stopped. I really think that people are mostly scared of somehow knowing they’re dead and stuck down there in the dark. The really good news is that they ain’t gonna be there. Or anywhere.”

“Maybe you’re right. I can’t think of a single thing I’d like to do for a million years.”

Charley laughed. “I think it’s gonna be nice to be off duty.”