Our small towns only dry cleaner died. Just keeled over at her desk. She was 46.
My wife thinks it has to do with all the chemicals they have to use. They sacrifice their lives so that we may have clean suits and shirts.
All these recent deaths have made me start to think about how I want to be remembered after I'm gone.
No funeral services, no graveside services. Just a party at a pizza joint here in my small town and one in So Cal - preferably at an Ameci's (my favorite in LA).
Order a small pizza and a large Diet Coke and set it aside in an empty chair for me. My favorite is sausage (sliced thin, not crumbled), anchovy, garlic, and red onion.
Order a large beer, but only have them fill it half way. It should be ice cold. See, I only like the first taste of beer. After that, it starts to get bitter tasting and warm, and subsequent swallows never match the arousing taste of the first swig.
Put an old Earth, Wind, and Fire CD into a boombox and play it low in the background.
Together, everyone should sing "Burnin' Love" by Elvis as loud and as drunk as sober people can sing (I'm just a hunka, hunka burnin' love).
Everyone should leave after 1 hour - I don't like long parties.
When everyone is leaving, they should all start up their cars at the same time and gun their engines as loud as they will go. Wherever I am (or am not), I'll hear them and will smell the exhaust and smile.
Bonus props to anyone who does a burnout as they leave. Just make sure there aren't any cops around, or they'll get a nasty exhibition of speed ticket.
Whatever is left of me after my organs are harvested for donation is to be cremated. Save half of my ashes to be buried with S, since she insists on keeping her body intact after death and wants to be buried in her family's plot. The other half of my ashes, she can keep around the house, and when she dies, the girls can sprinkle me in the ground at the house. Preferably somewhere near the garage.
4 comments:
What, no karaoke in the Ely household? No shower singing? No hot tub tunage? No automotive road warbling in your ragtop '05 Stang?
Surely you jest? I'm sure you sing all the time, just not in public. Singing in public with a crowd is like fast dancing for the first time as a teenage lad. You think everyone is watching you, but in reality, everyone else is too self-conscious about their own ineptitude on the dance floor to worry about anyone else.
EWF is the sound of my teenage youth - they were the first band that I would buy their new albums without even caring if they had a hit on the radio from that album. Many of my youthful firsts were accomplished with an EWF tune as background music.
People who think EWF is disco, will not be invited to my memorial pizza bash.
Ameci's ONLY offers sliced sausage, which is why it is my favorite. No other fast food pizza joint offers it sliced up, so Ameci's wins out. I think even Stu's boyz will choose Ameci's over the fancy-schmancy pesto-sauced-pineapple-garlic-artichoke-hearted pizzas that he and Connie order.
I think that I want to go out like Kirk Douglas did in "The Vikings." Put me on a Viking ship (in armor and with sword in hand). Everyone at the party gets a bow and flaming arrow. After I am pushed out onto the lake you shoot arrows at the ship until it goes out in a blaze of glory.
I didn't know that you were such a big Earth, Wind & Fire fan. Not sure if you know this. but Jill's sister has been going out with Maurice White for over 15 years. Occasionally he shows up at a family function. He doesn't karaoke.
Ed...you've broken bread with "The Maurice" and you've been in the presence of Elvis' Aloha cape.
If it weren't for your family, you could die now and be content...in my opinion.
Maurice White was one of those singer/songwriters that spoke the clearest to me as a youthful teenager and young adult.
I know he doesn't tour with the group anymore -- doesn't he have Parkinson's Disease? His brother Verdin still tours, as does Philip Bailey (the only man to out sing a tenor sax on the live version of "Reasons").
But the group just doesn't hold the same magic without Maurice.
His voice, his vision of the world, and his lyrics were the soundtrack of my youth, and I will be as sad when he passes as I am every December 8th -- when we lost Lennon.
No need to worry as of yet. He is doing quite well. He has gone with some new types of treatment and is felling pretty good. Jill noticed that there may have been something wrong about 8 years ago at a Thanksgiving dinner at her sister's house. However since Michael J. Fox has come out openly about the disease so has Maurice. He has sought out the latest and greatest in treatment. It's been about two years since I have seen him. He joined us at Disneyland for Aimee's 6th birthday. Major lifetime and world accomplishments aside, he is a genuinely nice person to talk to and to be around. His son and my nephew, Eden. Is growing up to be a great person and is fun to be around. Maurice continues to work and you'll be seeing a lot more from him I'm sure (keep your ear to the ground about a Broadway musical with his music, but you didn't hear that from me).
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