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Holy poo poo, this post owns. Thank you, WWI is so incredibly interesting.
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Oct 13, 2014 15:13
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One WWI story that that always got to me was The Bayonet Trench at Verdun.quote:When the battlefield clearance parties began to search the Verdun area after the war, one party found what appeared to be a mass grave of men from one unit, the 137th Infantry Regiment. It was thought that they were killed in their "jumping off" trench when the intense German shelling literally buried them alive. The story was that Father Ratier, an army chaplain, who had been a stretcher bearer with the 137th in 1916, found a line of some thirty nine bayonets protruding from the ground: each one marking the location of a body and here the legend started and the spot is marked by a memorial known as the "Trench of Bayonets" There has been some doubts over the veracity (or at least some of the details) of it. However trench collapses were a very real thing. For example: The 'Pompeii' of the Western Front: Archaeologists find the bodies of 21 tragic World War One German soldiers in perfectly preserved trenches where they were buried alive by an Allied shell. Article has pics of the site/artifacts. It's just all around spooky.
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Oct 13, 2014 15:38
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Dingleberry Jones posted:How is it that a family gets a casket filled with a family member, and buries it without even bothering to look inside? Your question reminded me of this super interesting interview on the Mysterious Universe podcast of a lady who worked in a crematorium: Mysterious Universe posted:In between tales of mouldy corpses and flaming skulls, Caitlin exposes our modern culture’s disconnection from the reality of death and decay, explores how non-western cultures handle death, and presents possibilities on alternative approaches to funerals. Amidst the crazy stories of fat people bubbling out of ovens she talks a great deal about how utterly disconnected we are from the dead, to the point where we never see and have no involvement with our loved ones once they have died (or 'passed on' to use the euphemism that lets us avoid the subject of death even further) They get shunted from hospital to the morgue to the crematorium/grave yard by strangers who never knew nor cared about them. It's even worse here in the UK as we don't have open caskets and the idea of looking at dead bodies like you do at some American funerals is 'gross' and 'creepy'. My husband won't even talk about what will happen once we die, just talking about death is a massive taboo. I guess not looking into your kids coffin is the norm? Anyway, when I die I want my whole family to get involved. I want them to grab a shovel and dig my grave, a proper deep one with neat edges, and then they can lower me in by hand (none of this weird coffin lowering machines malarky) and put the earth back over me like they used to in the good old days. I want my grandkids to complain about how back breakingly hard my funeral was, 'but ultimately satisfying, right kids?' my ghost will remind them from beyond the grave. Anyway, it's a good interview and worth a listen.
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Oct 13, 2014 15:56
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I think looking at dead people in caskets is weird and horrifying and I refuse to do it. I also think it's terribly weird that people take pictures of dead people in caskets at funerals. Just . . . just no.
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Oct 13, 2014 16:13
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I'm American and I couldn't imagine not getting a chance to say goodbye to my friends and loved ones before they're put into a hole in the ground. My father died when I was 9 and being able to see his body in the coffin helped me both deal with his death and give me a chance to mourn and say goodbye, as he was cremated after the funeral service. My grandfather died when I was 7 and getting to see him receive a funeral with full military honors (served in Korea and Vietnam) was a memory I can still vividly recall 17 years later. People mourn and grieve in different ways, and many people here wouldn't think of doing a funeral service without being able to have an open casket if the option is available (obviously if there was a horrific accident or something that killed the person, it'd be closed-casket) Edit: I'm totally with the guy above me about the photos thing though - there's getting a chance to say goodbye and then there's just being tacky.
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Oct 13, 2014 16:37
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Josef K. Sourdust posted:Semantic question: can you be a serial killer if you cannot see the person you kill? I mean, I know biplane pilots sometimes got close enough to see the enemy's face but generally they were killing at a distance. Surely the killing is destroying/disabling the aircraft rather than actually killing the opponent (for example, a plane with 2 crewmen would could only as 1 "kill", right?) so it isn't killing in the normal sense. Though I suppose most of the kills were actually fatal. At least with regards to WWI pilots, a 'kill' seems to refer to destroying the machine rather than the person. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_victory_standards_of_World_War_I It varies from country to country, but the common theme is 'enemy aircraft forced down, unable to move under its own power.' Bad luck for the pilot. Also with Manfred I'd be reasonably sure he's actually honouring the people he downed with his whole silver cups thing - silver isn't cheap and he certainly struck me as a man who respects his opponent.
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Oct 13, 2014 17:46
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Dingleberry Jones posted:How is it that a family gets a casket filled with a family member, and buries it without even bothering to look inside? The stated cause of death at the time was "struck by a train," I don't have much faith in 1920's reconstructive technology.
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Oct 13, 2014 17:56
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RNG posted:The stated cause of death at the time was "struck by a train," I don't have much faith in 1920's reconstructive technology. And "shipped via train"---I don't want to look at mangled remains that are 3 days old or more and have been at Florida temperatures.
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Oct 13, 2014 19:16
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Josef K. Sourdust posted:Semantic question: can you be a serial killer if you cannot see the person you kill? I mean, I know biplane pilots sometimes got close enough to see the enemy's face but generally they were killing at a distance. Surely the killing is destroying/disabling the aircraft rather than actually killing the opponent (for example, a plane with 2 crewmen would could only as 1 "kill", right?) so it isn't killing in the normal sense. Though I suppose most of the kills were actually fatal. I guarantee that myriad individuals throughout history who have held positions that entail killing in one degree or another, from rat-catchers and similar killers of vermin, to executioners, butchers and soldiers of various stripes, have taken perhaps too much joy in their profession, but none of them could be properly considered serial killers or the like. Simply having a desire that can be expressed in a very anti-social fashion does not an anti-social individual make. In fact you could argue that finding a socially acceptable outlet for such a desire is a mark of civilization. "Gee, I really like killing things, but it wouldn't do to kill my fellow men, so I should find a job where I can kill vermin/things for food/truly bad individuals/enemies of my civilization." It's still somewhat disturbing to see this particular aspect of humanity laid bare (I have had modern-era soldiers tell me that they did not want to fight beside those who enjoyed killing), but it's important to maintain a distinction between someone who likes killing and someone who kills without acceptable reason, especially since you don't have to actually like killing to do it for socially unacceptable reasons.
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Oct 14, 2014 02:37
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HonorableTB posted:I'm American and I couldn't imagine not getting a chance to say goodbye to my friends and loved ones before they're put into a hole in the ground. My father died when I was 9 and being able to see his body in the coffin helped me both deal with his death and give me a chance to mourn and say goodbye, as he was cremated after the funeral service. My grandfather died when I was 7 and getting to see him receive a funeral with full military honors (served in Korea and Vietnam) was a memory I can still vividly recall 17 years later. People mourn and grieve in different ways, and many people here wouldn't think of doing a funeral service without being able to have an open casket if the option is available (obviously if there was a horrific accident or something that killed the person, it'd be closed-casket) My friend is a mortician and you'd be surprised how often people insist on open-casket services even if the death was traumatic. Reconstruction that can be done on bodies is nothing short of phenomenal, however there is a line when heavy decomp, severe burning, and complete explosive eradication of a body is involved. In those cases the mortician will sternly tell the family "no... you really do not want to see the body."
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Oct 14, 2014 02:41
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As per talk of handling death and the what the family sees/interacts with - I cannot enough recommend the movie "Departures"; it's a very poignant film and deserving in my books of the accolades it won. Give it a rent.
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Oct 14, 2014 04:49
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CapitanGarlic posted:As per talk of handling death and the what the family sees/interacts with - I cannot enough recommend the movie "Departures"; it's a very poignant film and deserving in my books of the accolades it won. Give it a rent. God drat that's a great movie. It's like if instead of being an English veterinarian, James Herriot was instead a Japanese mortician.
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Oct 14, 2014 06:02
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Dingleberry Jones posted:I think looking at dead people in caskets is weird and horrifying and I refuse to do it. Welcome to one of the most fascinating sites on the net: http://thanatos.net/ It's a trove of early post-mortem photography. The images aren't gross, disgusting or anything like that. 19th C people wanted a photograph of their loved ones, and sometimes the only look was the last one. What is disturbing is the number pf dead children, most of whom were taken by diseases which are easily preventable with vaccines. The same vaccines that the crazy rich anti-vaxxers wants gone. They'd rather have a dead kid than an "imperfect" one.
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Oct 14, 2014 07:58
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Khazar-khum posted:Welcome to one of the most fascinating sites on the net: The fact that there's apparently such a demand for photographs like these that they can charge memberships is sort of creepy on its own, as fascinating as some of the photos are. And I'm sure the kids are dead because they didn't abstain completely from gluten and didn't put butter in their coffee, not because of diseases (that's what big science wants you to think).
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Oct 14, 2014 08:37
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Jisae posted:My friend is a mortician and you'd be surprised how often people insist on open-casket services even if the death was traumatic. Reconstruction that can be done on bodies is nothing short of phenomenal, however there is a line when heavy decomp, severe burning, and complete explosive eradication of a body is involved. In those cases the mortician will sternly tell the family "no... you really do not want to see the body." In the end who has the final say-so on the matter? Say the body got hit by a train, set on fire, half rotted and literally looked like a puddle of stinky goo and bones. If the family say they need an open casket do they get their wish or can they be overruled? Speaking of death practices - I used to have a job that meant I was first on scene for sudden deaths and the way I was taught to do things was to usher the family out of the room and keep them away from the body until the undertaker arrived. I would also have to inspect the body and sign it off and so the idea was it would be too upsetting for the family to see me moving the very recently dead around. I accepted this was the way it was done, and families never argued because I was supposedly an authority figure who had just shown up at a very difficult time. One day I get called to the house of a couple, the husband was in his late 50s and had just settled down for an afternoon nap and unexpectedly died in his sleep. I arrived and started to gently usher the wife out of the room but she turned around and refused to leave. I was baffled for a moment and stammered some idiots poo poo like 'it's better you have a seat next door, let me handle this' and she stared me down and said 'he's my husband and this is the last time I'll hold his hand, stroke his hair, touch his face... you go wait next door, I'll be as long as I need!' so I went and sat down and watched her through the door touch and stroke his face and it dawned on me how loving cruel it is to deny people these opportunities to touch and be alone with the corpse of their dead loved ones. Having worked on the periphery of the death business, and seen the inside of many a morgue, I would hate for my loved ones to end up there but I know I can't stop it happing.
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Oct 14, 2014 08:58
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Hospital have several methods to allow the family to be present at time of death, even in extreme cases. Something as simple as having black towels on hand lets families be with a dying loved one, even as said loved one is bleeding out.
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Oct 14, 2014 09:07
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Black towels aren't going to do anything about the smell, though.
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Oct 14, 2014 13:45
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Are open-caskets really common in US funerals then? Like would they be more common than a closed-casket or about 50/50? (Genuinely curious!) I knew they were a thing in general but because I live in the UK it's never something I've ever actually experienced first hand. I just assumed closed-caskets were the norm in general and you could certainly request an open-casket if you preferred. I don't want to offend anyone but it seems very weird to me. I understand that people would want one last chance to see their loved one and say goodbye but I think personally I'd prefer to remember them when they were alive. I know there's totally this huge purposeful detachment or even denial from the reality of death with that mindset but it's not an easy thing to alter I guess.
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Oct 14, 2014 15:04
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Gloomiebat posted:Are open-caskets really common in US funerals then? Like would they be more common than a closed-casket or about 50/50? (Genuinely curious!) I knew they were a thing in general but because I live in the UK it's never something I've ever actually experienced first hand. I just assumed closed-caskets were the norm in general and you could certainly request an open-casket if you preferred. A lot of people have wakes or viewings a few days prior to the actual burial. Wakes are usually open casket and are more open to the public, where anyone can come in, walk past the corpse, and talked to the deceased's loved ones. After this is the actual burial, where pallbearers bring the closed casket to the gravesite. This is more for the immediate family. A priest or someone says a few words, military honors are given and then the casket is lowered and buried. After this you usually go to someones house for a reception/potluck where you eat casseroles and get drunk. If you are the relative hosting this event people will bring you hundred of casseroles, lasagnas, dips and salads. I think I may still have some ziti in the freezer from my mother's funeral and she died 3 years ago.
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Oct 14, 2014 15:23
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Gloomiebat posted:Are open-caskets really common in US funerals then? Like would they be more common than a closed-casket or about 50/50? (Genuinely curious!) I knew they were a thing in general but because I live in the UK it's never something I've ever actually experienced first hand. I just assumed closed-caskets were the norm in general and you could certainly request an open-casket if you preferred. I live in the US and I have not been to very many funerals (about 5 or 6), and I am pretty sure all but one was open casket. The one that was not was for a family friend in his 60s or 70s. I was very young at the time, but I asked about it later. My mother says that it was because he died after a long fight with cancer and looked very frail. The widow wanted him to be remember as he was before he got sick rather than as he was when he died. The one of the open caskets was for a man who died of a self inflicted gun shot wound to the head. I had no idea they could even do that sort of thing, but I was pretty amazed. You would have never known.
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Oct 14, 2014 15:32
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Your Gay Uncle posted:A lot of people have wakes or viewings a few days prior to the actual burial. Wakes are usually open casket and are more open to the public, where anyone can come in, walk past the corpse, and talked to the deceased's loved ones. That's really interesting, thanks! I also apparently didn't know what a wake was; at the (thankfully few) family funerals I've attended we have the funeral ceremony at the church or crematorium, and then everyone goes to a hotel or restaurant (usually a specific function room is booked so it's family and close friends only obviously) where there's a meal or buffet and we all talk about the person who passed away and catch up with relatives you never get to see. This 'after party' never really had a name but when my nana passed away a few years ago we were referring to this as the wake. I guess these sorts of things happen at folk's houses as well, just the only ones I've been to we had somewhere booked since we have a large family. A viewing or anything happening before the funeral isn't something I've ever heard of here either, but again this sort of thing seems to differ greatly between UK and US. I guess you would visit the relatives of the person who died to pass on condolences prior if you wanted but you'd never visit the body. Gripen5 posted:I live in the US and I have not been to very many funerals (about 5 or 6), and I am pretty sure all but one was open casket. The one that was not was for a family friend in his 60s or 70s. I was very young at the time, but I asked about it later. My mother says that it was because he died after a long fight with cancer and looked very frail. The widow wanted him to be remember as he was before he got sick rather than as he was when he died. I know that they can work absolute wonders with preserving and presenting the body but I still don't think I would want to see the person after they had passed away, it just feels so alien to me. Again, I think it's because I'd like my lasting memories to be of them when they were still alive, I would get enough closure from knowing that they're gone without having to see them that last time I think, though that's my personal view. Obviously if you grow up where it's the norm to have an open-casket then it's not so unusual and vice versa. I've thankfully only been to about five funerals and they've all been closed-casket. Two of them were on the same day, for two of my classmates who'd died in a fire when we were all 12, which was a weird loving day and very sad. I don't think an open-casket would have been appropriate (and I don't even mean due to the cause of death, more that they were children).
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Oct 14, 2014 16:01
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My grandparents on one side were embalmed and had open casket wakes. On the other side, my grandma was cremated and we just had services with the urn present... but, a couple of days before the service, there was a private family viewing of the body at the funeral home. We had to sign a waiver before we went in, because she had chosen not to be embalmed before cremation, and apparently unembalmed bodies sometimes move or make noises due to decomposition. So the waiver was like "we will not sue you if we get loving traumatized by a dead body suddenly twitching as if alive." I was very disappointed when that didn't happen.
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Oct 14, 2014 16:02
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This is common knowledge in the U.S., but for everyone else, Emmett Till was high profile case of a controversial open casket funeral. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till He was savagely murdered in 1955, in a racially charged beating for "reportedly flirting with a white woman". His mother insisted on an open casket, so the public could see what had been done to her boy. There are pictures of his body that circulated in the news, and garnered national attention. I will not post them, because they are  as gently caress. They basically beat his head in until it looked like an under cooked pancake. gently caress racism.
RCarr has a new favorite as of 17:21 on Oct 14, 2014 |
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Oct 14, 2014 16:51
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Gloomiebat posted:That's really interesting, thanks! I also apparently didn't know what a wake was; at the (thankfully few) family funerals I've attended we have the funeral ceremony at the church or crematorium, and then everyone goes to a hotel or restaurant (usually a specific function room is booked so it's family and close friends only obviously) where there's a meal or buffet and we all talk about the person who passed away and catch up with relatives you never get to see. This 'after party' never really had a name but when my nana passed away a few years ago we were referring to this as the wake. I guess these sorts of things happen at folk's houses as well, just the only ones I've been to we had somewhere booked since we have a large family. I am from the USA and I still think open casket funerals/wakes are a little weird. My tolerance of them is greatly dependent on how much time I spent with the person when they were alive. If it wasn't much, then the open casket doesn't bother me. If it was someone I saw on the reg, then my reasons for not wanting to look at the body are similar to yours - I would rather remember them how they were alive, than my final memory of them be them laying in a box. I am really fascinated by non-western funerary customs. I had the privilege of attending a Hindu funeral for a friend's father and it was AMAZING. No fear/taboo about death, and the ritual really felt like it was a celebration of someone's life, and a way of both preparing his spirit for the journey to the afterlife, as well as preparing the bereaved to deal with the passing itself. Was really beautiful and moving and not at all "sad" like you'd think a funeral would be. Dude got one heck of a send off.
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Oct 14, 2014 17:03
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Gloomiebat posted:A viewing or anything happening before the funeral isn't something I've ever heard of here either, but again this sort of thing seems to differ greatly between UK and US. I guess you would visit the relatives of the person who died to pass on condolences prior if you wanted but you'd never visit the body. You'd probably enjoy the 50-year-old but still relevant The American Way of Death, by Jessica Mitford. Back to the U.S., most funeral notices I've seen in the newspapers either give times for the "viewing" or explicitly state "there will be no public viewing". I hate the things, because the corpse rarely looks like the person. My father-in-law just died, and I stayed behind while the rest of the family went to see the body one last time; there was no public viewing, just a last farewell for the family.
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Oct 14, 2014 17:06
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My Mom(!) has always been of the firm belief that it makes no sense to have an open-casket funeral, both for the oft-mentioned-here "why would you want to remember them dead?" reason and also because, well, that is not really them, if you believe even a tiny bit in spiritual things and the concept of a soul (or, since I do not believe in either of those, I still think a person clearly is no longer a person sans personality--whether through a coma or death, what have you). Certainly nearly every funeral I have been to has been open-casket, and I tend to join my mother near the entry door, not lookin at the casket. I just do not get it, but more power to anyone who does. My ex-girlfriend/one of my best friends died suddenly a couple of years back, and I almost had to decide whether to look at her open casket. But my flight got cancelled, and I did not make it until they had closed the casket for the wake-equivalent. Instead I had the experience of her 3-year-old daughter deciding that I was the only person at the funeral she wanted to greet by name. I do not think I will ever be able to type that without tearing up. This is not really about an unnerving Wikipedia article Oh, but I did want to relate this to uncommon-American-grieving-practicechat; I heard her mom may have slept with the urn of her ashes for a year or so afterward. I wish I could honestly say that seems weird but it kind of does not entirely. People dying "out of order" is really uncool, universe.
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Oct 14, 2014 18:48
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Gloomiebat posted:Are open-caskets really common in US funerals then? Like would they be more common than a closed-casket or about 50/50? (Genuinely curious!) I knew they were a thing in general but because I live in the UK it's never something I've ever actually experienced first hand. I just assumed closed-caskets were the norm in general and you could certainly request an open-casket if you preferred. When my Uncle died suddenly from a heart attack the family went to see him in his open casket before the ceremony, but the funeral (humanist) was closed casket, and that was in Tyneside (UK). Edit: I did think it was weird, but I think it did help us say goodbye, especially as none of my branch of the family had seen him for years beforehand. stump has a new favorite as of 21:49 on Oct 14, 2014 |
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Oct 14, 2014 21:46
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Open casket funerals... When I was 14, my Scoutmaster died. He'd been running the troop for 50 years and was well respected in the community, very active in his church, and people came to his funeral from all over the country, so it was a pretty large service. I got to stand honor guard next to the open end of his casket for a solid hour. For the first fifteen minutes I just tried to avoid it, for the next thirty it was really weird but I had to keep my poo poo together to not break in front of grieving friends and family members, and finally for the last fifteen I was kind of OK with it. I had a couple of friends commit suicide in high school, both of those were open casket and very disturbing. Then in college I was an anthropology major and one of my professors was a forensic pathologist, so I spent a semester around bodies and parts of bodies in various stages of decay. Gruesome slide shows right before lunch. I'm pretty desensitized to the sight of corpses at this point. Sounds like I should have turned into Dexter, but I work in quality assurance and write about wine.
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Oct 14, 2014 22:03
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Stop looking at corpses, TIA.
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Oct 14, 2014 22:08
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The only open casket funeral I ever went to was a friend who is Pawnee and a Desert Storm veteran. He was wearing his Army dress uniform, holding eagle feathers, and had his face painted in traditional Pawnee fashion. In death, he looked exactly like the badass he was in life.
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Oct 14, 2014 22:40
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RCarr posted:This is common knowledge in the U.S., but for everyone else, Emmett Till was high profile case of a controversial open casket funeral. I just wanted to add that Emmett was 14 when he was murdered, and that the two men who killed him got off the murder charge at least in part because they mutilated the boy so badly that the defense argued that maybe the body was some other black boy, not Till at all. His killers eventually confessed to the crime [making $4000 from a magazine in 1956 for the privilege!], but due to double-jeopardy never faced criminal penalties, and never expressed any remorse. From Wikipedia: "In 1992, Till-Mobley [Till's mother] had the opportunity to listen while Bryant was interviewed about his involvement in Till's murder. With Bryant unaware that Till-Mobley was listening, he asserted that Till had ruined his life, expressed no remorse, and said, "Emmett Till is dead. I don't know why he can't just stay dead." " gently caress racism.
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Oct 14, 2014 23:36
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I dont think I've ever been to a funeral that wasnt open casket.
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Oct 15, 2014 01:45
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My grandfather had bought a burial plot decades ago, but in the intervening time his views on death had changed and he wanted to be cremated. His will stated that "I want to be cremated now, but there's no way in hell I'm wasting a burial plot I paid a fortune for. Bury my ashes in the plot. Also, if it's raining, seriously, don't spend more than five minutes at the gravesite." So we ended up burying a tiny box in a giant grave. And it was raining.
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Oct 15, 2014 02:24
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I just spent a year working for a funeral home... we had a case where a young woman fell into a lake while it was still dangerous cold from winter and ended up dying of hypothermia/drowning. She was the second child to die in that family; her brother committed suicide when he was 17. Her mother never came to the wake, and never once looked in the casket. She had to be carried screaming down the aisle at the funeral service. Not everyone can handle looking.
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Oct 15, 2014 02:40
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Getting away from casket talk and back to sky murderers, it was a known fact that the Baron would sometimes strafe pilots that he shot down after they crash-landed. Even stranger was that he let some go. Maybe it had something to do with how good a fight they put up (or maybe he was low on ammo), but who knows.
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Oct 15, 2014 02:53
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American death culture is genuinely strange in many ways. I highly recommend Caitlin Doughty's new book "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" about working in a crematorium in Oakland. She has a cool youtube series that somehow I never heard about in ten years living in Oakland. I found her through Dan Savage podcasts, devoured her youtube series and loved her on other podcast interviews. I also really enjoyed "consuming grief" which is y on Amazonian cannibals, an incredibly interesting anthropological study on endo-cannibal indigenous cultures. There's also a cool book who's title escapes me about modern forensic study... bodies donated to science, the body farm, the development of modern funeral homes in the US, I'm sure someone will chime in with the title. Caitlin made a really interesting point in an interview on Mysterious Universe podcast, that really rang true with me as a good summation... If I had been born 100 or even 50 years before the time that I was, I would be SO MUCH MORE directly acquainted with death. I would likely have multiple, young, dead siblings. I would likely have cared for, washed, dressed and buried them myself, even have been featured in photos with their corpses. I'm a bit squicked out by decay, like, at the beach I fear stepping on or touching decomposing carcasses of fish or birds, but a dead human body isnt gross to me. Open-casket funerals were standard in my family when I was a young child, but most of the depression / baby boomer family members prefer to be cremated and have their ashes spread or interned now. Also, posters, FYI : funeral involves the corpse, memorial is a remembrance without corpse, wake is a specific form of joyful party post-burial, IE Finnegan's Wake. E: My family is Irish Catholic first-generation immigrants, for the most part, but more culturally Catholic rather than Religiously Catholic. MAKE NO BABBYS has a new favorite as of 03:19 on Oct 15, 2014 |
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Oct 15, 2014 03:15
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MAKE NO BABBYS posted:There's also a cool book who's title escapes me about modern forensic study... bodies donated to science, the body farm, the development of modern funeral homes in the US, I'm sure someone will chime in with the title. Stiff by Mary Roach
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Oct 15, 2014 03:53
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Khazar-khum posted:This. Goering was put in charge of Jasgdgeschwader 1 after von Richthofen's death and he was not well liked by the rest of the squadron. I read somewhere that he was the only member of the squadron to have never been invited to the squadron's post war reunions. I have no idea how true that part is, I can't find any sources other than one book I read years ago. The Blue Max is a great movie if you're interested in WW1 aviation. The dogfight scenes are done the old fashioned way, real planes and stunt pilots.
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Oct 15, 2014 06:11
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showbiz_liz posted:Stiff by Mary Roach THANKS. that's it!!
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Oct 15, 2014 06:12
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American Goon here, and I have never been to a funeral that wasn't open casket. I hate the concept honestly, because when I am feeling down, I can't shake the image of my wife laying there not looking right. She looked as well as a body could be expected to, but she didn't look right. That being said, I think I will have an open casket, but the wrong end open to gently caress with everyone "Why the gently caress is he wearing two different shoes? And why is 'gently caress snickerdoodles' written on the bottom?"
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Oct 15, 2014 08:08
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