“Ah, Lord!” he muttered, shaking his head sadly,
thinly, wearily in the dark. “I have seen them all…
I have seen them come and go….” And for a moment,
he was silent. “It’s pretty strange when you think
of it,” he muttered….And he was silent, and
darkness, mystery, and night were all about us.

—Thomas Wolfe
_______________

It was just an ordinary late afternoon, last Saturday. Big Blue and I were cruising around, running some errands. And it was a little early to be stopping by, when I came to Vinola’s. But I pulled in. Rosita had told me. She and a few friends were checking out the place tonight, soon before six. The restaurant part, I mean. I love Vinola’s. I think I might have mentioned that before, on this blog. I’m always raving about the place on Facebook. I brag about how great it is, wherever I go. The food is just fantastic. If you’re ever in the area, you really should stop by and check it out. There’s a restaurant, there, for all you people who won’t sit at the bar. If you stop by, tell them Ira sent you. And spend lots of money. I’m figuring to work up a few comp drinks, here. Anyway, I had told Rosita often, at work. You and Ken should check it out sometime. And tonight, she was there, with a few friends. So that’s why I pulled in early, to see them.

They were sitting at a table right close to the door, when I walked in. I sat with them and chatted for a while. Rosita had ordered an “Ira,” a real sweet drink Amy the barmaid named after me a few months back. (Nah, the story of how that all happened would take too much time, so I’ll skip it. I’m pretty proud to have a drink named after me, though.) They were waiting on their food. How’s the drink? I asked. They all beamed. “It’s really sweet and good,” Rosita said. Well, I said. If you’re not used to alcohol, I’d suggest that the three of you just share that one. It’s got a lot of different stuff in it. We chatted along. Outside, in the parking lot, a pickup with a cattle trailer was backing in under the big old oak tree. I looked. It’s not often you see a rig like that pulling into Vinola’s. The driver got out, walked around to the other side, opened the rear door, and pulled out a wheelchair. The guy in the passenger’s side lifted himself over, and they trundled in. I watched. Right up to the bar, they went. It was a little high for the guy in the wheelchair, but he made it work.

I walked over to the bar, then. It was pretty full, for it being so early. I took a seat at the far right end, behind the beer taps. Amy smiled in welcome and mixed up my Rob Roy. She brought it over with my usual glass of water. I hear someone ordered an “Ira” tonight, I told her. She laughed. “Yeah, when she (the server) first asked for it, she said someone wants an ‘Ora.’ I told her to go back and ask again, and she came back and said ‘Ira.’ I knew what to mix up, then,” she said. I laughed, too.

I just relaxed, then, and watched some football. I chatted a bit to the guy next to me. Kind of lean and wiry, he was, with a little blond mustache. He didn’t seem all that talkative, so I didn’t push anything. A few minutes later, I asked him, though. You get here often? I really like this place. I call it my bar. I live only a few miles away, so it’s real handy for me to get to.

“I’m here a lot,” he said. “Just earlier in the day. I got a forty-five minute drive, to get home. But I work two minutes from here. So it’s pretty nice for me, when I’m leaving work, to have a drink before that long drive home. But it’s usually around mid-afternoon, when I stop by. So I’m here late, for me.”

We chatted a bit more. And then I asked what guys ask each other. What do you work? He told me. “I work for (I forget the name), a burial vault company. That’s what I do. I go out and install burial vaults.”

I looked at him, extremely interested. A guy who worked in the death industry. I’ve often seen those trucks going down the road, pulling those funny little trailers. I’ve often wondered how it would be, to work for a place like that. Where you’re out at someone’s grave, almost every day. Not that there’s anything wrong with such work. Someone has to do it. Still, it’s the kind of thing I’ve always kind of shrank from. Working in graveyards. I never figured I’d ever experience anything like actually doing such a thing. Now, here was the next best thing. A guy who did.

Wow, I told him. You mean you go out and install vaults that will hold the coffins? That’s pretty wild. And I asked a lot of questions, rat-a-tat. Do you dig the graves, too? How about covering it, after you put that lid on the vault? What’s a vault made of? How do you deal with being around death, so much? Practically every day like that?

When you ask people what they do for a living, they can tell if you’re genuinely interested with your questions. They can tell, if you’re being fake or real. And he opened right up, and talked and talked. We sat there, sipping our drinks, just like old friends.

And he told me a bit about his work. It’s an industry, of itself. People who work in it know each other, are connected, a lot. He used to manage a smaller vault company, west of here. But he got tired of that, and came over to this much larger company in Leola. He liked not having the pressures that come from management. He liked just working in the shop, and going out to the field. “It’s good pay,” he said. “And I’ll never run out of work. Whatever happens, I’ll always have work.” Yeah, I said. I can sure see that.

And he told me a bit about his world. Most vaults are made of concrete, although you can buy cheaper wooden ones. The concrete vaults are warrantied to remain sealed for a hundred years. What kind of sense does that make? I asked. I mean, who’s gonna dig down and check, say, in fifty or sixty years, whether the lid’s still sealed or not? “It’s just a marketing gimmick,” he said. Well, I said. It’s probably for the living, that warranty. It’s sure not gonna make any difference to the person in the ground. He agreed. “It’s for the living.”

I asked how it all comes down, to take a vault out and put it in the ground. And he told me. He goes out to the graveyard an hour or two before the burial. He backs up to the hole, and that pole and winch system on his little trailer goes to work. He sets the vault down, and makes sure it’s right. Then he pulls off to the side a bit, and waits for the coffin to get there. The vault lid is still on his truck. Often, the deceased’s name is inscribed on the lid. And mourners can come around and check it out, if they want to. After the coffin goes down and the crowd leaves, he lowers the lid onto the vault. He’s the last guy to see the coffin before it disappears forever into the earth.

I kept asking questions. Do you cover up the hole? No, there are companies who contract to dig and cover up. All he does is go put in the vault and lower the coffin and cover it up. Then he leaves. That’s why he’s at Vinola’s earlier, most days. But that day, that Saturday afternoon, he had a late burial, at four o’clock. And that’s why he was there, and that’s why we were talking.

And I told him a little bit about Mom’s passing, last April. I come from the Amish, up in Canada. They bury their dead by hand, I said. It’s all done by hand, and the coffin is lowered by hand. And it’s covered up by hand, too, with shovels. And I told him how, up there in Aylmer, the pallbearers actually get down into the hole, and stand on the lid. And how the dirt is carefully handed down, and carefully placed. Until the lid is covered. Then they throw the dirt in, I said.

He was impressed. “That’s pretty respectful,” he said. “There’s an old guy over in such-and-such township (I don’t remember which one. I wasn’t taking notes.). He’s dug graves by hand, all his life. He’s seventy-two years old, and his hands are unbelievably thick and strong. He’ll dig a grave and cover it up for four hundred bucks. That’s way cheaper than the other contractors charge, with their machines. I told him he needs to raise his prices a bit. I mean, he’s out there, digging and hacking at rocks, in every kind of weather.”

That’s pretty amazing, I said. And then I asked him. Are you ever at a burial where no one shows up? He looked at me. “Yes,” he said. “Two or three a year. But you multiply that by all the workers who are doing what I’m doing, and it adds up.”

That’s awful, I said. How would that be, if no one shows up at your funeral? Not that it would that much difference after you’re gone, I guess. But still, I feel bad for anyone like that.

“I buried a millionaire, once,” he told me. “And there wasn’t a single person there, except me and the undertaker. A millionaire.” Someone had to have lived a pretty lonely life, I said. He looked at me. “His family bought the cheapest coffin they could buy. Do you know what the cheapest coffin is made of?”

Oh, probably some kind of pressed wood, I said. He shook his head. Paused a little dramatically. “It’s made of cardboard,” he said. “That millionaire was buried in a cardboard box, and no one came to his funeral.” Ah, man, I said. I feel bad for the guy. “Well,” he said. “The undertaker told me the guy’s brother came in and said they want the cheapest coffin there was. His brother was always cheap, the guy said. So they wanted to treat him how he’d treated them.”

Any way you look at it, that’s pretty sad, I said. It’s sad that anyone would have to be buried alone, buried by strangers. And it’s even sadder that anyone would be buried in a cardboard box. And we talked some more. I asked him. Do you ever sense any spiritual stuff going on, in your work? He looked at me, startled. Well, it has to be there, I said. It has to be.

“Not so much, with what I’m doing, and where I am,” he said. I bet the funeral home people see that stuff, I said. The undertakers. He nodded. “Now there’s one strange bunch of people,” he said. “But in all the years I’ve done this, I’ve ever seen only one body.” And he told me the story.

“There’s this one undertaker who didn’t like me, when I first came around,” he said. “I don’t know why. But he didn’t. And one afternoon, it was only me and him, out there doing the burying. And he claimed that another person had to witness that there was actually a body in that coffin. So he opened it up, and I looked.” He stopped talking and looked at me, and grappled for words. “Then the guy said, ‘Oh, the body slipped down. I have to pull it up and straighten it.’ He stood there, and grabbed the body under each arm, and yanked it around. The head was just flopping all around. I tell you, I can see that as clearly, sitting here telling you about it, as I saw it when it happened.”

Wow, I said. That’s pretty crazy. Yeah, I’m sure the people who embalm bodies see things the rest of us never see. I’m sure they do. He looked at me again, pretty intently. Then he said, “When it comes to protection from any kind of spiritual evil, or any kind of protection, really, I trust Him.” He pointed straight up. “He has protected me, all my life. He has. And I think He will keep right on doing that.” That’s great, I said. Yeah, I hear that. I trust Him, too.

He had to go, then, soon. It was dark outside, and late, for him. After a trip to the restroom, he walked back to me. He stood there, and extended his hand. I shook it. He spoke his name and I told him mine. “Maybe I’ll see you around here again, sometime,” he said. “Thanks for hanging out.” I enjoyed it, too, I told him. And yeah, maybe we can do this again sometime.
************************************************************

A few odds and ends. First, Billy the Ghost. I’m always pretty amazed when people come up and talk about something I wrote. And I’ve heard the question more than a few times. How’s Billy doing? Is he still around? They ask wisely. And I always chuckle and shake my head. Nah, he’s been real quiet, lately. The tenant’s not claiming to be hearing anything. Maybe Billy read what I wrote about him, and decided to lay low for a while. I don’t know. But he’s been real quiet.

And I guess I have a little confession to make. I need to clean up my soul. Confess, and maybe get victory in the future. My book reviews on Amazon, those have been trickling in, off and on, all along. Nothing will show up for weeks and weeks, then all of a sudden, there’s three new ones in two days, or some such thing. And all along, I’ve never, never asked for them, on any public forum. Sure, when I’d give someone a signed copy (and I’ve given away a LOT of copies), I’d suggest that a review would be nice. Some very few people posted one, the vast majority didn’t. And that was OK. I wasn’t going to hound anyone. I gave you a book. Write a review. I wanted it to be a natural thing.

The numbers crawled along, crawled upward, all this past year or two. Four hundred. Then a painstakingly slow climb to that Holy Grail. Five hundred. I wanted that number so bad I could taste it. And a month or two back, one evening I looked and it was at 486. Four hundred and eighty-six reviews on Amazon. And I thought, what the heck? I’m going to ask for some. I want to reach that plateau.

And I did something I had never done before. I went on Facebook and asked for reviews. Here’s what I posted. “Latest review on Amazon. And yeah, I sure keep an eye on it. I want to get to 500. The 484th review had a simple message. ‘It jumps around too much.’ Keep talking, you readers. I don’t care if it’s one star, or five. Just get me to 500.”

And just like that, reviews started popping up. By the next day, it was in the 490s. And a day or two later, I checked the numbers in the morning. And there it was. 500. Five hundred reviews on Amazon. And yeah, I cheated a little. I asked for those last sixteen. Still, when you look at it, that many reviews on Amazon ain’t too bad, no matter how they got there. Especially not for an ex-Amish redneck who just happened to get a book published.

OK. My soul feels cleansed, now. One final thing, about the book. An email came in, way last spring. From some person, at Penn State Dubois. A small, small branch of the original place. Penn State. I’ve always despised that football team. But I have to say, I’ve always respected JoPa. The man was and is a legend. They tore him down, at the end, though. He died, a broken old man, because of all that. It was a public lynching. Everyone piled on hysterically, to deflect from their own sins. All of it made me sick. The way they took his wins away, that’s all just BS, too. If you judge Joe Paterno, you’re judging yourself. You’re judging the dark places in your own depraved heart.

Anyway, I got an email from Penn State DuBois, last spring. It was a “feeler” email. They give a book to all incoming students, to read, before they come. And this year, someone had suggested mine. If they did that, would I consider coming to speak to the incoming class? I almost figured the email was spam. But I answered. Yes. Of course. I’d be delighted to.

I couldn’t figure out, how my book would ever get slipped in like that. To a freshman class, in a secular University. That puzzled me. There has to be something subversive going on, I thought. And we talked, the person at Penn State DuBoise and me. “What’s your speaker’s fee?” She asked.

I don’t even know what a speaker’s fee is. Or I didn’t, back then. I almost said, five hundred dollars. That would cover my cost of fuel. And give me a little, left over. But I didn’t say it. I hedged. What can you offer? And she didn’t hesitate. “How about fifteen hundred dollars?” she asked. Yeah, I said. I think that’ll work for me.

After that happened, I got to thinking. I could have priced myself at twice that, and nobody would have blinked an eye. So now I’m telling the world. If you want me to come speak at any university event, my price is five thousand bucks, plus expenses. Am I worth that? I am, if you’ll pay me. So that’s what I’m charging. I’ll sure consider some pretty hefty discounts, like gas money and food, if you’re contacting me to come speak to your little book club. No discounts for universities, though, unless you fly me to Germany, or some such thing. Then, I’ll take what you give me. Here, in this country, my speaker’s fee is flat. Five grand. Take it or leave it.

And they scheduled me to come speak to the class earlier this month, a few weeks back. It had been a while since I spoke to such a large group. I headed out the day before, and drove all the way up to northwestern PA. Right off Rt. 80, that’s where DuBois is. I checked in at the motel the college had booked for me. I told the clerk my name. He looked at me. “Are you coming to speak about your book?” he asked. Yep, that’s me, I said. “Well, I’ve heard a lot about it,” he told me. Turned out that he was in the freshman class, but he had enrolled only a few days before classes started. So he hadn’t read the book the other freshmen had read earlier in the summer.

The next day, I wandered over to the little campus. Dressed in flannel shirt and jeans. An author can get away with just about anything, when it comes to things like that. We’re expected to be a little eccentric. I checked out the place a bit. Nice little school. At 11:30, I walked in to meet Marly Doty, the person who had contacted me. She showed me the little auditorium, where I’d be speaking. There, I met Tharren Thompson, the Director of Diversity. What a weird title, I thought. I didn’t even know there was such a thing. We hit it right off, he and I. Got along real, real well. Turned out he’s the one who had suggested my book. I thanked him profusely for that.

They had invited the public, too. And the place did not fill up, but a nice little crowd came. Probably sixty-five people, or so. It went about like it always does. I talked for half an hour, then read a passage from the book. The first date scene. And then I opened up for questions. I always enjoy that part. There’s never any shortage of those. And someone always asks. “How is Sarah doing?” I always hang my head in shame. And I tell them what I know.

It was over, then, and I stood in the back, by the piano. Signed the books people brought. And sold and signed a few that I had brought. It was all very enjoyable. I could use a few more events like that. Especially at my current speaker’s fee.

A few words about the Bible Study. The first one had only one person. The second one had three. And we wondered, as the next Tuesday approached. Would anyone new come? Allen Beiler was coming, we knew, and bringing his brother, Andrew. But would anyone else show up?

We hung out upstairs as 6:30 approached. Glancing out the window nervously. And all of a sudden, through the open window, there came a clatter of steel wheels, and the clopping of a horse. There’s a buggy driving in, I hollered at Reuben. The rig pulled up to the hitching rail, and a young man stepped out. Tied up his horse. And we went and welcomed him. A friend of mine, who I’ve known for years. I hadn’t seen him in a while, though. Allen and Andrew arrived, then, and we all had a real good time. The third Bible Study had five people. Not exactly taking the world by storm, here. But still. Increasing numbers.

Then, on Tuesday of this week, I got a call from my friend, Amos Smucker. He’s a horse dentist. I’ve never heard of such a thing. There were no such people around where I grew up. And now, a horse dentist wanted to come to where we are gathering. Could he come that night? He wondered. And could he bring a friend? Of course, I told him. Anyone can come. You don’t have to ask permission. You can come once, and never come back again, if that’s what you want. You can come sporadically, when it suits you. It’s not a continuation, the Bible Study, where you have to be there every week, or you’ll miss something. No particular theme. Just listening to individual sermons. Just come when you can.

And that night, nine people showed up, including the guy driving the horse and buggy. We were kind of a rag-tag group, I guess. But we were all pretty comfortable, I think. The group doesn’t have a name, yet. Maybe we could call ourselves the Rag-Tags.

And I thought about it, later. The most honest place you’ll ever find is at the bar. That’s where people open up, where people speak from the heart. And that’s how safe and comfortable we’d like our Bible Study to be. As safe and comfortable as the bar.