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22 December 2023
THEY\'RE NOT CELEBRITIES. THEY WALK PAST YOU ON THE STREET, BRING YOU YOUR FOOD AT A RESTAURANT, AND LIVE IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD. THEY\'RE EVERYDAY PEOPLE. JUST LIKE YOU.
OCTOBER 2004: JOE KOCH
JOE KOCH IS 80 YEARS OLD, AND HAS WORKED IN THE FUNERAL BUSINESS FOR OVER FIVE DECADES. HE HAS HELPED BURY MORE PEOPLE THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE, AND HE HAS THE STORIES TO PROVE IT. SO JOIN WAYNE, WATCHMAN, AND FPHATTY ON THIS SPECIAL OCTOBER-THEMED EVERYDAY PEOPLE INTERVIEW, AS WE LEARN ALL ABOUT THE LIFE OF JOE KOCH, AND THE DEATHS OF COUNTLESS OTHERS.
Wayne Chinsang: So, why don\'t we start by you telling us what business you do, how long you\'ve done it, and how you got started.
Joe Koch: I started in 1946 after I came back from World War II. I served an apprenticeship for two years, became licensed, and now I\'ve been licensed for over 50 years.
WC: So how did you get interested in becoming a funeral director? What did you do during the War? You were a medic, right?
JK: Well, I was a medic, but that\'s not what I really did. I was trained as a field medic in the hospital, but I was transferred in the hospital to be a chaplain\'s assistant. The chaplain didn\'t know how to drive a car, and he was head chaplain over a whole group of other chaplains of all denominations, so I had to chauffeur him around and take care of all sorts of paperwork. So, (laughs) even though I trained as a medic, I no longer did that. I came back from the War, got a part-time job, and registered at Marquette to go to school. But I decided in late August or early September that I wasn\'t gonna go to school. I had a chance to take a trip all through Canada: Montreal, Quebec, and Niagara Falls. And when I came back, I decided I would be a funeral director. Don\'t ask me what turned it on--
All: (laugh)
JK: --because I don\'t know. But I came back, and that was my decision. I went and talked to a friend of the family who was a funeral director, and he told me to go see another gentleman. So I did, and got placed. I was registered as an apprentice.
Fphatty Lamar: Did you know anything about it when you decided to do it?
JK: Well, I had known enough as a medic. Overseas we had a big hospital, and there were some deaths, so I saw how things were handled.
WC: So, I\'ve always been confused about what exactly it is a funeral director does. Do they handle everything, like, from the hospital on?
JK: In the older days, when I first started, you were a funeral director and an embalmer. You had a license for each. But now you have one license, a dual license. In the old days, you couldn\'t embalm. You could direct a funeral, meet the family, make funeral arrangements, but you could not embalm.
WC: So why did they change it?
JK: I don\'t know. I still have two certificates that show I\'m licensed in each. But when I get a renewal, I just say I\'m a funeral director. It doesn\'t say anything about embalming.
FL: So when you get renewals for that, do you have to go through hours of classes?
JK: I have to have 15 C.E.U.s every two years, and they have to be in certain categories. There are four categories.
FL: What is a C.E.U.?
JK: Continuing education credits.
WC: So, when you started doing it, it obviously has to be harder to deal with the family than the business end of it. I mean, just on an emotional level.
JK: Well, yes and no. First of all, as an apprentice you don\'t really start out meeting the family or making the funeral arrangements. You\'re the flunky. You\'re washing the cars, or going out to get a removal or bring it back. And you\'re learning to embalm while you\'re helping out in the prep room. In the meantime, you saw people. When we\'d have a visitation you would be expected to be at the front door greeting people. And you\'d see some of the emotion, like when the family comes in, naturally. You\'re broken into that gradually.
WC: Sure.
JK: Actually, the first case that I was ever on was, we got this call to pick up this man from the medical examiner\'s office. He had worked for a laundry, and he stepped out on the back platform to smoke a cigarette, and a truck backed-up and crushed him. Just like a pancake. And that was the first case that I ever went out on where I had to pick somebody up. It was really something, I tell ya.
WC: Do you do reconstruction?
JK: I don\'t anymore. But I did everything. I did simple hairdos for women. I learned how to do reconstruction and cover-up. I had people that had huge cancer holes in their face, and I showed them in a casket. I covered it up, and you never even would have known they had it.
FL: Well, for someone that is flat, how do you reconstruct that?
JK: He wasn\'t reconstructed. He was crushed completely. And in those days, they didn\'t even have body bags.
WC: What did they use?
JK: A sheet. You just wrap it in a sheet and throw it in. The medical examiner in those days would use a heavy brown paper that had kind of a tar double layer on it, to facilitate moving without making a mess all over everything. Now we have body bags; when they\'re real bad, you just put it into a body bag right away.
FL: Do you have your own body bags?
JK: We have them here. There are many different kinds of bags.
WC: You\'ve obviously been doing this for a long time.
JK: For over 50 years. (laughs)
WC: Right. So what is one of the most obvious changes you\'ve noticed in the business through the decades?
JK: Well, all funeral homes had someone living on the premises. There were no electronics. We had a telephone, yeah. But there were no electronics. So, if somebody rang that front doorbell, you had to answer it, whether it was two o\'clock in the morning or two o\'clock in the afternoon. And if I was out on a funeral or a removal, my wife or family couldn\'t go anywhere. She had to be right where she could answer the phone and the door. We were really tied down. It was a 24-hour a day job.
WC: Life\'s work.
JK: Right. But we have beepers and cell phones now. So nobody has to live here anymore.
FL: How long did you and your family live above or next to the funeral home?
JK: Up until 1995.
FL: How did your kids feel about it, growing up with it?
JK: They grew up with it. Telephones already had call-forwarding, and we and some friends of ours that had another funeral home both had it. So if we wanted to go out, we\'d forward our calls to our friends, and they\'d do the same for us. And we used to have a card that we\'d lay on the phone, for the kids, so they would know we were answering their phone. So they\'d pick up the phone and just say, \"Funeral home.\" They wouldn\'t say which funeral home. The kids just grew up with that. They accepted it. And they knew that when there were people downstairs, you had to be quiet upstairs. It was a different life, but it\'s not that way anymore. Help works in shifts-- so many hours a day or night-- and then they get off. And on the weekends we have teams. We have five funeral homes, and the same crew works them all.
FL: Is there a day of the week that is more popular to have funerals on? Like Sundays?
JK: Saturdays used to be a big funeral time, but it\'s gotten to be very prohibitive because of the huge cost of overhead at the cemetery. They think nothing of charging hundreds of dollars extra just to go in on a Saturday, because they\'ve got to pay all of their men overtime. So Saturdays aren\'t as popular anymore. And there is nothing on Sunday.
FL: For the same reason?
JK: Same reason. Cemeteries are closed. Now, with a Jewish cemetery, that\'s a different story. They bury on Sundays, but they don\'t bury on Saturdays.
FL: What religions have you--
JK: I\'m Catholic. But I\'ve buried Jews, I\'ve buried Catholics, non-Catholics, and all denominations.
FL: I didn\'t know if certain denominations go with specific funeral homes.
JK: Well, on the south side of Milwaukee, if you look, almost within a block or two of every Catholic church on the south side-- which is very Catholic; Polish Catholic-- is a funeral home. In the old days, they walked to church.
WC: Right. So, I know you\'ve got good stories, and I want to get to the good stories--
All: (laugh)
WC: But first, it\'s obviously a weird thing for us looking from the outside in, because funerals are a thing of great emotion--
JK: Funerals are for the living. Funerals are not for the dead. People have this strange idea, you know? Like, \"Mother said she didn\'t want to be shown.\" \"Dad said do it as quick as blah blah blah.\" I have had people that have done a service with a closed casket, and they come back to me at another funeral and say, \"Never again will I do that.\" Because they have no closure. Funerals are for the living. I had a funeral on Friday. He was a friend of mine since seventh grade. We saw each other once a month, and we talked to each other on the phone once a month. The only time I didn\'t see him regularly was when we were both in World War II. But we did visit. We were both in England; I was in North Wales, and he was on the other side of England. I went over there to see him, and he came to see me. We did get together. And I buried him on Friday. And the family said, \"He\'s been sick for years and he\'s been homebound, and no one\'s going to come out.\" But you\'d be surprised the amount of people that came in. It surprised the family. So the funeral is for the living. It\'s not for the dead. And to follow somebody\'s instructions... my parents said, \"Bury us cheap. As cheap as possible.\" Finally, I said to them, \"I don\'t even want to hear that. First of all, I\'m a funeral director. I can get everything wholesale.\"
All: (laugh)
JK: \"It\'s not going to be about the cost involved. You\'re not going to have anything to say about it. I\'m going to pick out what I want. So you can wish all you want.\" And it wouldn\'t have made any difference if they put it in writing, because the next of kin has the final say. And even if you put it in your will... when do you open the will? After the funeral\'s over, in most cases. They don\'t even know where the will is, sometimes. Most people try to follow the wishes if they\'re reasonable. But with that funeral I had on Friday, he was cremated, and the cemetery wanted to know if she was going to be cremated or not, because it determined where they would be buried so they could be together. So she was going on, \"Oh, I don\'t want to be cremated!\" So I said, \"You don\'t have to be. Just because he is doesn\'t mean you have to be.\" And that\'s another thing most people don\'t understand, that cremation is not the funeral. Cremation is only the final end. What do you do? Do you bury or do you cremate? My kids, I have several of them that want to be waked and baked. They want the complete funeral, they want to be shown, and they want the whole thing. But then, instead of burying, they want cremated.
FL: If people are cremated are they usually shown first?
JK: Well, that\'s what should be. When I first started, any cremations we had were only after a complete funeral.
FL: Where are cremations done?
JK: We have our own crematorium on 169th and National.
FL: What is the material like? Is it brick, is it ceramic?
JK: Well, our new one isn\'t like the old ones. It\'s a very intense heat. We burn everything; the casket, everything. The only thing you get back is crushed bone. And that we just put through a machine that grinds it down. It\'s very brittle and breaks up very easily.
FL: Do people at the funeral home do that?
JK: We have a man that manages that building. And he can do two, maybe three a day. It depends on the size of the person that you\'re cremating and what you\'re cremating them in. If you\'re cremating them in a full wood casket, a cremation casket, or a cardboard box.
FL: Do you know how they vary in time?
JK: Well, if you\'re 5\'6\" and weigh 110 pounds, or you\'re 6\'2\" and weigh 300 pounds, that\'s where the difference in time comes in. That, and what container it\'s in. A cardboard box is going to go a lot quicker than a solid wood casket.
WC: Right. So, I know you\'ve seen some pretty interesting things.
JK: I\'ve had lots. (laughs) The funeral home that I owned was on 8th and Greenfield, and over 50 years that neighborhood changed a lot. So I buried a lot of gang members.
WC: So through all the years that you\'ve done it, how many funerals do you think you\'ve done?
JK: Dear Lord.
All: (laugh)
JK: Anywhere from 50 to 100 a year. For 50 years. And that\'s not counting the ones that I did for other people. The friend who I had the phone deal with, if he had two funerals, I\'d take one.
WC: So, through all those funerals, what are some of the things that stick out in your head as being weird?
JK: Well, there are a lot of funerals you don\'t even remember. But there are some that stick out in your memory, either because they were awfully nice, or they were so different from what you normally have. We had a young boy who died... fell out of a car. They turned a corner, he was playing with the doorknob, and he fell out of the car. And his father was in service in Hawaii. And the leis, the flowers that were flown here from Hawaii. Not telegraphed like they do now. They were made up in Hawaii and brought here by plane. You don\'t forget that. That\'s different. I never put a lei on another corpse in my life. Then there was a young girl that was buried in her strapless formal. She died two days after her prom... died in Lake Michigan. You don\'t forget those. They\'re unusual; it\'s not the everyday. The normal thing is that the young bury the old. That doesn\'t always happen. Every once in awhile I\'ll see a 20-year-old or a 30-year-old, or even a 50-year-old, and you\'ll read in the paper that they\'re survived by their parents. My oldest son is 51 years old, and he\'s got both parents living yet. So, the young bury the old. That\'s the way it should be. When I first started, we buried a lot of babies. We used to keep baby caskets on hand; we\'d buy them half-dozen at a time.
WC: Why was that?
JK: The death rate was high for children years ago. They didn\'t have neonatal centers like they have today, or the equipment they have today. Now someone will give birth to a tiny baby and it will still live. But I buried babies that a shoebox was too big for them.
FL: Have you noticed that the people you bury today are a lot older?
JK: Oh, yes. People live longer today.
Night Watchman: When you started out, was it harder to bury a baby then for you?
JK: It\'s always hard to bury children. I hate burying children. I hate it.
FL: For yourself, or is it just harder to watch?
JK: It\'s just hard. It\'s just hard. Because of the emotion of the families... and it\'s just hard to bury children. Especially if you have children. I have six children, and they were young at that time. Oh, I hated children\'s funerals. But I\'m a firm believer in taking children to funerals. I don\'t think they should be there the whole time, but children should be brought to the funeral home to their grandma or grandpa or auntie or what. Let them see them. Let them know that they\'ve gone on, and if you have religion, than you can get into it. Whatever you want to believe in, tell them. But they should be told.
FL: Do you have a lot of people bring kids in that avoid it?
JK: Oh, people would bring kids in, and we used to have a big staircase that would go upstairs right there at the front door. And they\'d put their kids on the stairway and say, \"Don\'t look and stay there.\" And what\'s the kid thinking? Probably that something is going to jump out at him. That\'s just dumb. But if you\'re worried about your child because their grandma is getting pretty old and you don\'t know how they\'re gonna take it, wait until a neighbor or somebody dies and then take them to that funeral. There won\'t be that personal attachment, and they\'ll know that there isn\'t really anything wrong with it. And there were funerals that I\'ll never forget just because of how different they were. I buried a Chinese woman, a grandmother, and when the funeral was all over, a family member came to me with a package, and it had a stocking cap and blanket in it. And she asked if I could put it on her grandmother because she was always cold, and she didn\'t want her to be cold anymore. You don\'t forget those. They\'re different. Another thing they did was they had candy wrapped in a triangle, and everyone took a piece of the candy and put it in the casket with her. So I\'ve buried candy, or they\'ll put some money in with them sometimes.
WC: Or drugs?
JK: Oh, yeah. I\'m sure I\'ve buried drugs. There was a death amongst a gang; it was a motorcycle death, but it was gang-related. And all the members came and hung around, and they all but had the body out of the casket. So after they left I went while I was turning off all the lights and looked in the coat pocket, and found a little plastic pouch with white powder in it. I\'m sure it was drugs. They were all high, anyway. But I\'ve also had the police videotape every person that comes in and out of my funeral home, when it\'s been drug-related or what. But I\'ve had them photograph pages and pages of the register book, so they could take names and see who was there and what did they do.
NW: Do you get a lot of strange requests for things to be done?
JK: Well, not really. I\'ve buried liquor, I\'ve buried cigarettes. There used to be something, like a wedding crown, for people from a certain foreign country.
NW: Are funerals generally a certain way?
JK: Years ago, the families pretty much left it to us. We\'d suggest what they should have, and they\'d ask us what they needed to bring. We\'d tell them to bring underwear, socks, shoes, white shirt or tie... you know. Nowadays, they can bury them in a sweater, they can bury them in blue jeans, whatever. One time a family came to me and they had bought a brand-new pair of expensive sneakers that they wanted on this young man. It blew my mind. (laughs) Who would bury a $100 pair of sneakers? So today they can do anything. They can play any kind of music... they can do whatever they want. We kind of let them do whatever they want to do, within reason. Now, I would not let a Korean family kill a chicken or something like that.
WC: (laughs)
JK: I\'ve stopped that before. They wanted to, but I said, \"No. We\'ll do nothing like that in here,\" because I knew it happened somewhere else, and it ruined the rugs.
NW: Yeah.
JK: That, and I won\'t let them sleep overnight in the funeral home with the body.
FL: Do people ask to do that a lot?
JK: Oh, I\'ve been asked to do that a lot. I let them do it once, but never again. Because then I have to stay up and keep a tab on what they\'re doing.
WC: Right. I knew someone in high school that passed away and his friends did that. They stayed the night in the funeral home with his body.
JK: Were they Korean?
WC: No.
JK: Yeah, I wouldn\'t let that happen.
WC: So, I\'ve got to ask since you deal with this kind of stuff, but you obviously believe in an afterlife because you\'re Catholic. But have you ever had any weird things happen? Anything you can\'t explain?
JK: Nope.
WC: Nothing?
JK: No. And I\'m not saying that there aren\'t ghosts, because in old castles in England, for example, they have proved that they have seen apparitions or whatever. But I have never seen any. I have never heard any. No noise, no bumping, no knocking.
FL: No one in your family even?
JK: No.
WC: That\'s weird. You\'d think that with living next to it you\'d hear something.
NW: Can you make some up?
All: (laugh)
JK: No, I really can\'t say that anything odd ever happened.
WC: What about, like, bodies twitching?
JK: Bodies don\'t twitch.
WC: They don\'t?
JK: No.
WC: God. You\'re ruining it all for me.
JK: (laughs) Also, everybody doesn\'t get rigor mortis.
WC: Really?
JK: That\'s a chemical that the body is releasing. If you\'re fighting, if you\'re outside and someone attacks you and you fight back but you die, you\'re going to have terrific rigor mortis because your muscles have put out all these chemicals, and you\'re gonna be hard. But it passes off in a short time. Depending on how rigorous it was decides how long it will take to pass off. You can make it pass off. You can break the rigor mortis when they\'re dead.
WC: How?
JK: (laughs) Come here.
WC: (laughs) Ummm....
JK: Hold your arm stiff.
[WAYNE HOLDS HIS ARM STIFF, AND JOE PULLS BACK ON IT SLOWLY UNTIL HIS ARM IS STRAIGHT]
JK: You just straighten it out slowly. And after that, you can move it just fine.
WC: Really? No way.
JK: You\'re just doing it before it passes naturally.
WC: How long does it take?
JK: It varies. Some people never get it. A little old lady that slips away in her sleep and has been bed-ridden for who knows how long isn\'t going to have rigor mortis.
WC: No way.
JK: It\'s a chemical thing. If the body is doing something, it\'s going to be rigorous. If it\'s not, it won\'t be rigorous.
WC: That\'s weird. So, you were talking a bit ago about how on Friday you buried your friend.
JK: Yeah.
WC: Is it weird mixing the business with personal things?
JK: It\'s very hard. I\'ve known him since we were in seventh grade, and we went to high school together. There were seven of us that hung together. Four of them lived on the same block. The fifth one\'s grandmother lived on that block, so he spent a lot of time on that block after school because his parents worked. And then myself and another guy lived a few blocks away. But the friend that I just buried, we went to the same grade school together, so that\'s how we met. And out of the seven, I\'m the only one left. They\'re all dead. They\'re all dead. And we had seen and talked to these people over the years, some more often than others. But I\'m the last one.
FL: Because you know the process, is it easier to bury someone you know?
JK: No, it\'s not easy.
FL: Is it harder because you know how it\'s done?
JK: It\'s harder in a lot of ways, yes. Hard to say goodbye.
FL: Yeah.
JK: Hard to say goodbye. In our family, when we have a funeral it\'s a good party. Because everybody is together, and our family is close. After the funeral or the meal, we come back to the house. When my mother died, we came back to the house and played cards.
FL: Have you noticed that certain denominations deal with it better than others?
JK: Well, in the old days they\'d mourn for 30 days after, and they\'d wear a black band on their arms. But that\'s all pretty much gone. But I believe in talking about the dead, you know? Just because your mother or father is gone, or your uncle or grandfather, and they could have been a hell of a person, but there must have been some good times to remember. And it\'s good to talk about the good times. Just the other day one of my kids, Bobby, was talking about my dad, and he said, \"Remember when I\'d take Pa shopping, and then I\'d bring the car back to our house? And then he\'d go back in the afternoon and take Grandma and him to church? And then they\'d come home and have a drink, but I couldn\'t have a drink because I was too young? And we always had steak, salad, and fresh rolls.\" (laughs) So, they talk about it. And why not? Those are the good things. People are very superstitious of it. Like, \"Oh, we can\'t have a picture up,\" or, \"Oh, we can\'t do this or that.\" Or they do the opposite, and make a shrine that can never be moved. And I don\'t believe in that, either. Go about your normal lives. But there is nothing wrong with talking about the good times or the bad times or the trips you had with somebody that is no longer here. And nobody ever agrees with somebody 100% of the time. Like this friend of mine that just passed, he was a son of a gun as he got older. He was horrible. (laughs) But as a young man, he was great. He was wonderful with the kids, and the kids all loved him. But as he got older and couldn\'t do things, he was homebound and couldn\'t walk without a walker or wheelchair, so he got to be a very grumpy and crabby old man.
WC: It\'s got to be a tough thing to deal with.
JK: Everybody treats death differently. I think his wife, Ethel, was happy he was gone (laughs) because she had a miserable life with him. She is 81 years old and still working full-time just so she can be out of the house. She shouldn\'t be working.
WC: Yeah.
JK: She should be home and enjoying life. But she wasn\'t, I\'m sure, because he was such a pain in the rear these past couple years.
WC: So, kind of along those lines, you\'re retired, but you still come to work and do this job.
JK: Yeah.
WC: Why?
JK: Well, when I meet a family or whatever, I have somebody else here to do all the writing and all the work. (laughs) They put it in the computer. I sign the papers, I sign the death certificates and all that.
WC: But why do you still keep doing it if you don\'t have to?
JK: I don\'t know.
All: (laugh)
JK: It\'s something to do. When I sold the business, I sold it completely: all my pre-arranged funerals, everything. And they\'ve been very good to me. They pay my health insurance. They give me stuff. They\'re very, very good to me. The other day I came in and they said, \"Gimme your car keys. We\'ll go get your car washed for you.\" So why shouldn\'t I stay? (laughs)
All: (laugh)
WC: Well, that about does it. I have more than enough recorded. Anything else you want to say?
JK: I wouldn\'t trade it for anything. I like what I do, and I enjoy coming into the funeral home.
WC: And that\'s the point.
JK: Yep. They\'re good to me here. I don\'t pick up anybody, I don\'t dress anybody... and that\'s another thing. When I used to dress bodies, I never cut anything, unless they gave me something that absolutely didn\'t fit. And what I mean by that is, if they gave me a suit for a little skinny guy, but you\'ve got a 200 pound guy, how you gonna get him in it, you know?
WC: Right.
JK: Then it\'s gotta be slit down the back. But otherwise, we dress them fully. Everything gets put on fully. And there is a knack to that.
NW: Yeah.
JK: But if it\'s done the way I was trained to do it, it goes so easy. I could dress a person without getting out of bed.
All: (laugh)
WC: Them, or you?
All: (laugh)
JK: Them.
All: (laugh)
JK: It\'s something that you learn. Now, I do know for a fact that there are a lot of places that cut everything. They just lay the clothes on. Years ago, they used to bury people in a shroud. It looked like a suit, but it had a draw-string waist, no pockets, no fly, nothing. And we\'d just slip it over their arms and tie it in back. And dresses were the same way, years ago. But now people are buried with their items and wearing their clothes. Clowns, for instance, sometimes want their clown stuff buried with them.
WC: But they\'re not buried as clowns, are they?
JK: I had one that wanted to be buried as a clown.
NW: Wow. That creeps me out.
WC: Yeah.
All: (laugh)
WC: Did you have to do the clown makeup?
JK: No. One of the other clowns did it. I have a barber that just loved when I would call him. He\'d help me do hair for ladies, but he used to want to help with everything. Like, lift the casket, move the body... he was really fascinated with it all.
NW: Do you find that there are a lot of people that are fascinated by it?
JK: No. Most people are like, \"Ehhh....\"
WC: See, we\'re fascinated.
NW: Yeah. (laughs)
WC: Not in a morbid way, I guess, but more in a mysterious way.
JK: Yeah. And he was kind of that way. He was fascinated with what I was doing and how I could do it. And it\'s hard dressing a person alone because of moving the body and doing the clothes at the same time. You need a person on the other side to help out. But it\'s still very simple.
WC: Yeah, for you. But for us it\'s hard to even picture it in our heads.
JK: Right. I remember I was at a wedding one time, and the guys were having trouble with their ties. They didn\'t know I was a funeral director. And I said to them, \"Well, I can help you with it, but you\'ve got to lay down.\"
All: (laugh)
WC: Well, that about does it. We can shoot the photo now.
JK: Okay. I didn\'t bring my casket cane.
WC: Casket cane?
JK: Yes. I have a cane where the top of it, the handle, is a silver casket.
WC: No way!
FL: Where did you get that?
JK: I won it at a funeral director\'s convention. It was a casket putter, but the guy upstairs helped me cut it off and place it on the top of a cane. So I\'ve got a casket cane, and I\'ve got a string on it, just like this cane, to help me carry it, and I\'ve got emblems down the side of it. The emblems on this cane represent some of the places I\'ve been to on trips. I\'ve got Yellowstone here. A year ago I was in London, and I went to the Tower of London, and I came back on the QE2. You know what the QE2 is?
WC: No.
JK: Queen Elizabeth II.
WC: Oh, okay.
FL: Was that fun?
JK: Yeah.
FL: How long was the trip?
JK: We were gone two weeks. The trip was slow coming home. I came home on the Queen Mary from World War II. Came home in three days, unescorted, during the middle of the War. We came home fast. And that ship was loaded. And I mean loaded. When we were up on deck, somebody else was sleeping in our bunks, and vice versa. But the QE2 is a luxury ship.
WC: How fast was that?
JK: We had four formal nights.
WC: Hmmm. I don\'t like to fly, so I like to know about boats.
JK: I was spending my kids\' inheritance.
All: (laugh)
WC: Well, that\'s understandable.
JK: That\'s what they wanted. They want us to spend our money. And I told them, \"We\'re not saving nothing for you. When it\'s gone, it\'s gone.\" But I\'ve got some limits. I\'ll never buy another car.
WC: Well, your car is pretty new.
JK: It\'s a \'99. But I\'ll never buy another car. I don\'t know how much longer I\'ll be driving. Who knows? I\'m gonna be 81. I could have a stroke, I could be disabled someway, and my wife hasn\'t driven in years. What am I gonna do? Buy another car and have it sit there? No. So, I just bought a nice big car. I gotta have a big car. But I can\'t park like I used to. I used to be able to parallel park a hearse in one swing. But not anymore.
FL: I couldn\'t do it, either.
WC: She can\'t parallel park a Honda.
All: (laugh)
OCTOBER 2004: JOE KOCH
JOE KOCH IS 80 YEARS OLD, AND HAS WORKED IN THE FUNERAL BUSINESS FOR OVER FIVE DECADES. HE HAS HELPED BURY MORE PEOPLE THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE, AND HE HAS THE STORIES TO PROVE IT. SO JOIN WAYNE, WATCHMAN, AND FPHATTY ON THIS SPECIAL OCTOBER-THEMED EVERYDAY PEOPLE INTERVIEW, AS WE LEARN ALL ABOUT THE LIFE OF JOE KOCH, AND THE DEATHS OF COUNTLESS OTHERS.
Wayne Chinsang: So, why don\'t we start by you telling us what business you do, how long you\'ve done it, and how you got started.
Joe Koch: I started in 1946 after I came back from World War II. I served an apprenticeship for two years, became licensed, and now I\'ve been licensed for over 50 years.
WC: So how did you get interested in becoming a funeral director? What did you do during the War? You were a medic, right?
JK: Well, I was a medic, but that\'s not what I really did. I was trained as a field medic in the hospital, but I was transferred in the hospital to be a chaplain\'s assistant. The chaplain didn\'t know how to drive a car, and he was head chaplain over a whole group of other chaplains of all denominations, so I had to chauffeur him around and take care of all sorts of paperwork. So, (laughs) even though I trained as a medic, I no longer did that. I came back from the War, got a part-time job, and registered at Marquette to go to school. But I decided in late August or early September that I wasn\'t gonna go to school. I had a chance to take a trip all through Canada: Montreal, Quebec, and Niagara Falls. And when I came back, I decided I would be a funeral director. Don\'t ask me what turned it on--
All: (laugh)
JK: --because I don\'t know. But I came back, and that was my decision. I went and talked to a friend of the family who was a funeral director, and he told me to go see another gentleman. So I did, and got placed. I was registered as an apprentice.
Fphatty Lamar: Did you know anything about it when you decided to do it?
JK: Well, I had known enough as a medic. Overseas we had a big hospital, and there were some deaths, so I saw how things were handled.
WC: So, I\'ve always been confused about what exactly it is a funeral director does. Do they handle everything, like, from the hospital on?
JK: In the older days, when I first started, you were a funeral director and an embalmer. You had a license for each. But now you have one license, a dual license. In the old days, you couldn\'t embalm. You could direct a funeral, meet the family, make funeral arrangements, but you could not embalm.
WC: So why did they change it?
JK: I don\'t know. I still have two certificates that show I\'m licensed in each. But when I get a renewal, I just say I\'m a funeral director. It doesn\'t say anything about embalming.
FL: So when you get renewals for that, do you have to go through hours of classes?
JK: I have to have 15 C.E.U.s every two years, and they have to be in certain categories. There are four categories.
FL: What is a C.E.U.?
JK: Continuing education credits.
WC: So, when you started doing it, it obviously has to be harder to deal with the family than the business end of it. I mean, just on an emotional level.
JK: Well, yes and no. First of all, as an apprentice you don\'t really start out meeting the family or making the funeral arrangements. You\'re the flunky. You\'re washing the cars, or going out to get a removal or bring it back. And you\'re learning to embalm while you\'re helping out in the prep room. In the meantime, you saw people. When we\'d have a visitation you would be expected to be at the front door greeting people. And you\'d see some of the emotion, like when the family comes in, naturally. You\'re broken into that gradually.
WC: Sure.
JK: Actually, the first case that I was ever on was, we got this call to pick up this man from the medical examiner\'s office. He had worked for a laundry, and he stepped out on the back platform to smoke a cigarette, and a truck backed-up and crushed him. Just like a pancake. And that was the first case that I ever went out on where I had to pick somebody up. It was really something, I tell ya.
WC: Do you do reconstruction?
JK: I don\'t anymore. But I did everything. I did simple hairdos for women. I learned how to do reconstruction and cover-up. I had people that had huge cancer holes in their face, and I showed them in a casket. I covered it up, and you never even would have known they had it.
FL: Well, for someone that is flat, how do you reconstruct that?
JK: He wasn\'t reconstructed. He was crushed completely. And in those days, they didn\'t even have body bags.
WC: What did they use?
JK: A sheet. You just wrap it in a sheet and throw it in. The medical examiner in those days would use a heavy brown paper that had kind of a tar double layer on it, to facilitate moving without making a mess all over everything. Now we have body bags; when they\'re real bad, you just put it into a body bag right away.
FL: Do you have your own body bags?
JK: We have them here. There are many different kinds of bags.
WC: You\'ve obviously been doing this for a long time.
JK: For over 50 years. (laughs)
WC: Right. So what is one of the most obvious changes you\'ve noticed in the business through the decades?
JK: Well, all funeral homes had someone living on the premises. There were no electronics. We had a telephone, yeah. But there were no electronics. So, if somebody rang that front doorbell, you had to answer it, whether it was two o\'clock in the morning or two o\'clock in the afternoon. And if I was out on a funeral or a removal, my wife or family couldn\'t go anywhere. She had to be right where she could answer the phone and the door. We were really tied down. It was a 24-hour a day job.
WC: Life\'s work.
JK: Right. But we have beepers and cell phones now. So nobody has to live here anymore.
FL: How long did you and your family live above or next to the funeral home?
JK: Up until 1995.
FL: How did your kids feel about it, growing up with it?
JK: They grew up with it. Telephones already had call-forwarding, and we and some friends of ours that had another funeral home both had it. So if we wanted to go out, we\'d forward our calls to our friends, and they\'d do the same for us. And we used to have a card that we\'d lay on the phone, for the kids, so they would know we were answering their phone. So they\'d pick up the phone and just say, \"Funeral home.\" They wouldn\'t say which funeral home. The kids just grew up with that. They accepted it. And they knew that when there were people downstairs, you had to be quiet upstairs. It was a different life, but it\'s not that way anymore. Help works in shifts-- so many hours a day or night-- and then they get off. And on the weekends we have teams. We have five funeral homes, and the same crew works them all.
FL: Is there a day of the week that is more popular to have funerals on? Like Sundays?
JK: Saturdays used to be a big funeral time, but it\'s gotten to be very prohibitive because of the huge cost of overhead at the cemetery. They think nothing of charging hundreds of dollars extra just to go in on a Saturday, because they\'ve got to pay all of their men overtime. So Saturdays aren\'t as popular anymore. And there is nothing on Sunday.
FL: For the same reason?
JK: Same reason. Cemeteries are closed. Now, with a Jewish cemetery, that\'s a different story. They bury on Sundays, but they don\'t bury on Saturdays.
FL: What religions have you--
JK: I\'m Catholic. But I\'ve buried Jews, I\'ve buried Catholics, non-Catholics, and all denominations.
FL: I didn\'t know if certain denominations go with specific funeral homes.
JK: Well, on the south side of Milwaukee, if you look, almost within a block or two of every Catholic church on the south side-- which is very Catholic; Polish Catholic-- is a funeral home. In the old days, they walked to church.
WC: Right. So, I know you\'ve got good stories, and I want to get to the good stories--
All: (laugh)
WC: But first, it\'s obviously a weird thing for us looking from the outside in, because funerals are a thing of great emotion--
JK: Funerals are for the living. Funerals are not for the dead. People have this strange idea, you know? Like, \"Mother said she didn\'t want to be shown.\" \"Dad said do it as quick as blah blah blah.\" I have had people that have done a service with a closed casket, and they come back to me at another funeral and say, \"Never again will I do that.\" Because they have no closure. Funerals are for the living. I had a funeral on Friday. He was a friend of mine since seventh grade. We saw each other once a month, and we talked to each other on the phone once a month. The only time I didn\'t see him regularly was when we were both in World War II. But we did visit. We were both in England; I was in North Wales, and he was on the other side of England. I went over there to see him, and he came to see me. We did get together. And I buried him on Friday. And the family said, \"He\'s been sick for years and he\'s been homebound, and no one\'s going to come out.\" But you\'d be surprised the amount of people that came in. It surprised the family. So the funeral is for the living. It\'s not for the dead. And to follow somebody\'s instructions... my parents said, \"Bury us cheap. As cheap as possible.\" Finally, I said to them, \"I don\'t even want to hear that. First of all, I\'m a funeral director. I can get everything wholesale.\"
All: (laugh)
JK: \"It\'s not going to be about the cost involved. You\'re not going to have anything to say about it. I\'m going to pick out what I want. So you can wish all you want.\" And it wouldn\'t have made any difference if they put it in writing, because the next of kin has the final say. And even if you put it in your will... when do you open the will? After the funeral\'s over, in most cases. They don\'t even know where the will is, sometimes. Most people try to follow the wishes if they\'re reasonable. But with that funeral I had on Friday, he was cremated, and the cemetery wanted to know if she was going to be cremated or not, because it determined where they would be buried so they could be together. So she was going on, \"Oh, I don\'t want to be cremated!\" So I said, \"You don\'t have to be. Just because he is doesn\'t mean you have to be.\" And that\'s another thing most people don\'t understand, that cremation is not the funeral. Cremation is only the final end. What do you do? Do you bury or do you cremate? My kids, I have several of them that want to be waked and baked. They want the complete funeral, they want to be shown, and they want the whole thing. But then, instead of burying, they want cremated.
FL: If people are cremated are they usually shown first?
JK: Well, that\'s what should be. When I first started, any cremations we had were only after a complete funeral.
FL: Where are cremations done?
JK: We have our own crematorium on 169th and National.
FL: What is the material like? Is it brick, is it ceramic?
JK: Well, our new one isn\'t like the old ones. It\'s a very intense heat. We burn everything; the casket, everything. The only thing you get back is crushed bone. And that we just put through a machine that grinds it down. It\'s very brittle and breaks up very easily.
FL: Do people at the funeral home do that?
JK: We have a man that manages that building. And he can do two, maybe three a day. It depends on the size of the person that you\'re cremating and what you\'re cremating them in. If you\'re cremating them in a full wood casket, a cremation casket, or a cardboard box.
FL: Do you know how they vary in time?
JK: Well, if you\'re 5\'6\" and weigh 110 pounds, or you\'re 6\'2\" and weigh 300 pounds, that\'s where the difference in time comes in. That, and what container it\'s in. A cardboard box is going to go a lot quicker than a solid wood casket.
WC: Right. So, I know you\'ve seen some pretty interesting things.
JK: I\'ve had lots. (laughs) The funeral home that I owned was on 8th and Greenfield, and over 50 years that neighborhood changed a lot. So I buried a lot of gang members.
WC: So through all the years that you\'ve done it, how many funerals do you think you\'ve done?
JK: Dear Lord.
All: (laugh)
JK: Anywhere from 50 to 100 a year. For 50 years. And that\'s not counting the ones that I did for other people. The friend who I had the phone deal with, if he had two funerals, I\'d take one.
WC: So, through all those funerals, what are some of the things that stick out in your head as being weird?
JK: Well, there are a lot of funerals you don\'t even remember. But there are some that stick out in your memory, either because they were awfully nice, or they were so different from what you normally have. We had a young boy who died... fell out of a car. They turned a corner, he was playing with the doorknob, and he fell out of the car. And his father was in service in Hawaii. And the leis, the flowers that were flown here from Hawaii. Not telegraphed like they do now. They were made up in Hawaii and brought here by plane. You don\'t forget that. That\'s different. I never put a lei on another corpse in my life. Then there was a young girl that was buried in her strapless formal. She died two days after her prom... died in Lake Michigan. You don\'t forget those. They\'re unusual; it\'s not the everyday. The normal thing is that the young bury the old. That doesn\'t always happen. Every once in awhile I\'ll see a 20-year-old or a 30-year-old, or even a 50-year-old, and you\'ll read in the paper that they\'re survived by their parents. My oldest son is 51 years old, and he\'s got both parents living yet. So, the young bury the old. That\'s the way it should be. When I first started, we buried a lot of babies. We used to keep baby caskets on hand; we\'d buy them half-dozen at a time.
WC: Why was that?
JK: The death rate was high for children years ago. They didn\'t have neonatal centers like they have today, or the equipment they have today. Now someone will give birth to a tiny baby and it will still live. But I buried babies that a shoebox was too big for them.
FL: Have you noticed that the people you bury today are a lot older?
JK: Oh, yes. People live longer today.
Night Watchman: When you started out, was it harder to bury a baby then for you?
JK: It\'s always hard to bury children. I hate burying children. I hate it.
FL: For yourself, or is it just harder to watch?
JK: It\'s just hard. It\'s just hard. Because of the emotion of the families... and it\'s just hard to bury children. Especially if you have children. I have six children, and they were young at that time. Oh, I hated children\'s funerals. But I\'m a firm believer in taking children to funerals. I don\'t think they should be there the whole time, but children should be brought to the funeral home to their grandma or grandpa or auntie or what. Let them see them. Let them know that they\'ve gone on, and if you have religion, than you can get into it. Whatever you want to believe in, tell them. But they should be told.
FL: Do you have a lot of people bring kids in that avoid it?
JK: Oh, people would bring kids in, and we used to have a big staircase that would go upstairs right there at the front door. And they\'d put their kids on the stairway and say, \"Don\'t look and stay there.\" And what\'s the kid thinking? Probably that something is going to jump out at him. That\'s just dumb. But if you\'re worried about your child because their grandma is getting pretty old and you don\'t know how they\'re gonna take it, wait until a neighbor or somebody dies and then take them to that funeral. There won\'t be that personal attachment, and they\'ll know that there isn\'t really anything wrong with it. And there were funerals that I\'ll never forget just because of how different they were. I buried a Chinese woman, a grandmother, and when the funeral was all over, a family member came to me with a package, and it had a stocking cap and blanket in it. And she asked if I could put it on her grandmother because she was always cold, and she didn\'t want her to be cold anymore. You don\'t forget those. They\'re different. Another thing they did was they had candy wrapped in a triangle, and everyone took a piece of the candy and put it in the casket with her. So I\'ve buried candy, or they\'ll put some money in with them sometimes.
WC: Or drugs?
JK: Oh, yeah. I\'m sure I\'ve buried drugs. There was a death amongst a gang; it was a motorcycle death, but it was gang-related. And all the members came and hung around, and they all but had the body out of the casket. So after they left I went while I was turning off all the lights and looked in the coat pocket, and found a little plastic pouch with white powder in it. I\'m sure it was drugs. They were all high, anyway. But I\'ve also had the police videotape every person that comes in and out of my funeral home, when it\'s been drug-related or what. But I\'ve had them photograph pages and pages of the register book, so they could take names and see who was there and what did they do.
NW: Do you get a lot of strange requests for things to be done?
JK: Well, not really. I\'ve buried liquor, I\'ve buried cigarettes. There used to be something, like a wedding crown, for people from a certain foreign country.
NW: Are funerals generally a certain way?
JK: Years ago, the families pretty much left it to us. We\'d suggest what they should have, and they\'d ask us what they needed to bring. We\'d tell them to bring underwear, socks, shoes, white shirt or tie... you know. Nowadays, they can bury them in a sweater, they can bury them in blue jeans, whatever. One time a family came to me and they had bought a brand-new pair of expensive sneakers that they wanted on this young man. It blew my mind. (laughs) Who would bury a $100 pair of sneakers? So today they can do anything. They can play any kind of music... they can do whatever they want. We kind of let them do whatever they want to do, within reason. Now, I would not let a Korean family kill a chicken or something like that.
WC: (laughs)
JK: I\'ve stopped that before. They wanted to, but I said, \"No. We\'ll do nothing like that in here,\" because I knew it happened somewhere else, and it ruined the rugs.
NW: Yeah.
JK: That, and I won\'t let them sleep overnight in the funeral home with the body.
FL: Do people ask to do that a lot?
JK: Oh, I\'ve been asked to do that a lot. I let them do it once, but never again. Because then I have to stay up and keep a tab on what they\'re doing.
WC: Right. I knew someone in high school that passed away and his friends did that. They stayed the night in the funeral home with his body.
JK: Were they Korean?
WC: No.
JK: Yeah, I wouldn\'t let that happen.
WC: So, I\'ve got to ask since you deal with this kind of stuff, but you obviously believe in an afterlife because you\'re Catholic. But have you ever had any weird things happen? Anything you can\'t explain?
JK: Nope.
WC: Nothing?
JK: No. And I\'m not saying that there aren\'t ghosts, because in old castles in England, for example, they have proved that they have seen apparitions or whatever. But I have never seen any. I have never heard any. No noise, no bumping, no knocking.
FL: No one in your family even?
JK: No.
WC: That\'s weird. You\'d think that with living next to it you\'d hear something.
NW: Can you make some up?
All: (laugh)
JK: No, I really can\'t say that anything odd ever happened.
WC: What about, like, bodies twitching?
JK: Bodies don\'t twitch.
WC: They don\'t?
JK: No.
WC: God. You\'re ruining it all for me.
JK: (laughs) Also, everybody doesn\'t get rigor mortis.
WC: Really?
JK: That\'s a chemical that the body is releasing. If you\'re fighting, if you\'re outside and someone attacks you and you fight back but you die, you\'re going to have terrific rigor mortis because your muscles have put out all these chemicals, and you\'re gonna be hard. But it passes off in a short time. Depending on how rigorous it was decides how long it will take to pass off. You can make it pass off. You can break the rigor mortis when they\'re dead.
WC: How?
JK: (laughs) Come here.
WC: (laughs) Ummm....
JK: Hold your arm stiff.
[WAYNE HOLDS HIS ARM STIFF, AND JOE PULLS BACK ON IT SLOWLY UNTIL HIS ARM IS STRAIGHT]
JK: You just straighten it out slowly. And after that, you can move it just fine.
WC: Really? No way.
JK: You\'re just doing it before it passes naturally.
WC: How long does it take?
JK: It varies. Some people never get it. A little old lady that slips away in her sleep and has been bed-ridden for who knows how long isn\'t going to have rigor mortis.
WC: No way.
JK: It\'s a chemical thing. If the body is doing something, it\'s going to be rigorous. If it\'s not, it won\'t be rigorous.
WC: That\'s weird. So, you were talking a bit ago about how on Friday you buried your friend.
JK: Yeah.
WC: Is it weird mixing the business with personal things?
JK: It\'s very hard. I\'ve known him since we were in seventh grade, and we went to high school together. There were seven of us that hung together. Four of them lived on the same block. The fifth one\'s grandmother lived on that block, so he spent a lot of time on that block after school because his parents worked. And then myself and another guy lived a few blocks away. But the friend that I just buried, we went to the same grade school together, so that\'s how we met. And out of the seven, I\'m the only one left. They\'re all dead. They\'re all dead. And we had seen and talked to these people over the years, some more often than others. But I\'m the last one.
FL: Because you know the process, is it easier to bury someone you know?
JK: No, it\'s not easy.
FL: Is it harder because you know how it\'s done?
JK: It\'s harder in a lot of ways, yes. Hard to say goodbye.
FL: Yeah.
JK: Hard to say goodbye. In our family, when we have a funeral it\'s a good party. Because everybody is together, and our family is close. After the funeral or the meal, we come back to the house. When my mother died, we came back to the house and played cards.
FL: Have you noticed that certain denominations deal with it better than others?
JK: Well, in the old days they\'d mourn for 30 days after, and they\'d wear a black band on their arms. But that\'s all pretty much gone. But I believe in talking about the dead, you know? Just because your mother or father is gone, or your uncle or grandfather, and they could have been a hell of a person, but there must have been some good times to remember. And it\'s good to talk about the good times. Just the other day one of my kids, Bobby, was talking about my dad, and he said, \"Remember when I\'d take Pa shopping, and then I\'d bring the car back to our house? And then he\'d go back in the afternoon and take Grandma and him to church? And then they\'d come home and have a drink, but I couldn\'t have a drink because I was too young? And we always had steak, salad, and fresh rolls.\" (laughs) So, they talk about it. And why not? Those are the good things. People are very superstitious of it. Like, \"Oh, we can\'t have a picture up,\" or, \"Oh, we can\'t do this or that.\" Or they do the opposite, and make a shrine that can never be moved. And I don\'t believe in that, either. Go about your normal lives. But there is nothing wrong with talking about the good times or the bad times or the trips you had with somebody that is no longer here. And nobody ever agrees with somebody 100% of the time. Like this friend of mine that just passed, he was a son of a gun as he got older. He was horrible. (laughs) But as a young man, he was great. He was wonderful with the kids, and the kids all loved him. But as he got older and couldn\'t do things, he was homebound and couldn\'t walk without a walker or wheelchair, so he got to be a very grumpy and crabby old man.
WC: It\'s got to be a tough thing to deal with.
JK: Everybody treats death differently. I think his wife, Ethel, was happy he was gone (laughs) because she had a miserable life with him. She is 81 years old and still working full-time just so she can be out of the house. She shouldn\'t be working.
WC: Yeah.
JK: She should be home and enjoying life. But she wasn\'t, I\'m sure, because he was such a pain in the rear these past couple years.
WC: So, kind of along those lines, you\'re retired, but you still come to work and do this job.
JK: Yeah.
WC: Why?
JK: Well, when I meet a family or whatever, I have somebody else here to do all the writing and all the work. (laughs) They put it in the computer. I sign the papers, I sign the death certificates and all that.
WC: But why do you still keep doing it if you don\'t have to?
JK: I don\'t know.
All: (laugh)
JK: It\'s something to do. When I sold the business, I sold it completely: all my pre-arranged funerals, everything. And they\'ve been very good to me. They pay my health insurance. They give me stuff. They\'re very, very good to me. The other day I came in and they said, \"Gimme your car keys. We\'ll go get your car washed for you.\" So why shouldn\'t I stay? (laughs)
All: (laugh)
WC: Well, that about does it. I have more than enough recorded. Anything else you want to say?
JK: I wouldn\'t trade it for anything. I like what I do, and I enjoy coming into the funeral home.
WC: And that\'s the point.
JK: Yep. They\'re good to me here. I don\'t pick up anybody, I don\'t dress anybody... and that\'s another thing. When I used to dress bodies, I never cut anything, unless they gave me something that absolutely didn\'t fit. And what I mean by that is, if they gave me a suit for a little skinny guy, but you\'ve got a 200 pound guy, how you gonna get him in it, you know?
WC: Right.
JK: Then it\'s gotta be slit down the back. But otherwise, we dress them fully. Everything gets put on fully. And there is a knack to that.
NW: Yeah.
JK: But if it\'s done the way I was trained to do it, it goes so easy. I could dress a person without getting out of bed.
All: (laugh)
WC: Them, or you?
All: (laugh)
JK: Them.
All: (laugh)
JK: It\'s something that you learn. Now, I do know for a fact that there are a lot of places that cut everything. They just lay the clothes on. Years ago, they used to bury people in a shroud. It looked like a suit, but it had a draw-string waist, no pockets, no fly, nothing. And we\'d just slip it over their arms and tie it in back. And dresses were the same way, years ago. But now people are buried with their items and wearing their clothes. Clowns, for instance, sometimes want their clown stuff buried with them.
WC: But they\'re not buried as clowns, are they?
JK: I had one that wanted to be buried as a clown.
NW: Wow. That creeps me out.
WC: Yeah.
All: (laugh)
WC: Did you have to do the clown makeup?
JK: No. One of the other clowns did it. I have a barber that just loved when I would call him. He\'d help me do hair for ladies, but he used to want to help with everything. Like, lift the casket, move the body... he was really fascinated with it all.
NW: Do you find that there are a lot of people that are fascinated by it?
JK: No. Most people are like, \"Ehhh....\"
WC: See, we\'re fascinated.
NW: Yeah. (laughs)
WC: Not in a morbid way, I guess, but more in a mysterious way.
JK: Yeah. And he was kind of that way. He was fascinated with what I was doing and how I could do it. And it\'s hard dressing a person alone because of moving the body and doing the clothes at the same time. You need a person on the other side to help out. But it\'s still very simple.
WC: Yeah, for you. But for us it\'s hard to even picture it in our heads.
JK: Right. I remember I was at a wedding one time, and the guys were having trouble with their ties. They didn\'t know I was a funeral director. And I said to them, \"Well, I can help you with it, but you\'ve got to lay down.\"
All: (laugh)
WC: Well, that about does it. We can shoot the photo now.
JK: Okay. I didn\'t bring my casket cane.
WC: Casket cane?
JK: Yes. I have a cane where the top of it, the handle, is a silver casket.
WC: No way!
FL: Where did you get that?
JK: I won it at a funeral director\'s convention. It was a casket putter, but the guy upstairs helped me cut it off and place it on the top of a cane. So I\'ve got a casket cane, and I\'ve got a string on it, just like this cane, to help me carry it, and I\'ve got emblems down the side of it. The emblems on this cane represent some of the places I\'ve been to on trips. I\'ve got Yellowstone here. A year ago I was in London, and I went to the Tower of London, and I came back on the QE2. You know what the QE2 is?
WC: No.
JK: Queen Elizabeth II.
WC: Oh, okay.
FL: Was that fun?
JK: Yeah.
FL: How long was the trip?
JK: We were gone two weeks. The trip was slow coming home. I came home on the Queen Mary from World War II. Came home in three days, unescorted, during the middle of the War. We came home fast. And that ship was loaded. And I mean loaded. When we were up on deck, somebody else was sleeping in our bunks, and vice versa. But the QE2 is a luxury ship.
WC: How fast was that?
JK: We had four formal nights.
WC: Hmmm. I don\'t like to fly, so I like to know about boats.
JK: I was spending my kids\' inheritance.
All: (laugh)
WC: Well, that\'s understandable.
JK: That\'s what they wanted. They want us to spend our money. And I told them, \"We\'re not saving nothing for you. When it\'s gone, it\'s gone.\" But I\'ve got some limits. I\'ll never buy another car.
WC: Well, your car is pretty new.
JK: It\'s a \'99. But I\'ll never buy another car. I don\'t know how much longer I\'ll be driving. Who knows? I\'m gonna be 81. I could have a stroke, I could be disabled someway, and my wife hasn\'t driven in years. What am I gonna do? Buy another car and have it sit there? No. So, I just bought a nice big car. I gotta have a big car. But I can\'t park like I used to. I used to be able to parallel park a hearse in one swing. But not anymore.
FL: I couldn\'t do it, either.
WC: She can\'t parallel park a Honda.
All: (laugh)
artid
2745
Old Image
7_2_everyday.jpg
issue
vol 7 - issue 02 (oct 2004)
section
everyday people