Frozen Dead Guys & Coffin Coffee Tables | 4M #180

Welcome to the hundred-and-eightieth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #180, where we’ll serve up bite-sized, easily-digestible nuggets of the deathcare news you need to crush conversations in the week ahead. Bon appetit!

Fun while it lasted

We were “today old” when we heard about the Frozen Dead Guy Festival in Nederland, Colorado, and, alas, we are five years too late to participate in the celebration of a Norwegian man who died in 1989 and was stored in a cryogenic capsule in a shed in the tiny 1.6-square-mile town. The festival was created in 2002 as a way to promote tourism, and until Covid interfered, it attracted thousands of tourists for coffin races, polar plunges, and hearse parades. 

Remembering the royals

Speaking of newly discovered fun(eral) facts: Did you know that both Princess Diana and her father-in-law Prince Philip were buried in lead-lined coffins? The Royal Observer shared these “lesser-known” details just last week, commenting that Diana’s coffin weighed more than 700 pounds, and Philip’s lead-lined English oak coffin was made for him 30 years before his death in 2021. While the primary purpose of the lead was to “prevent moisture” and therefore keep the body intact for a longer time, a 2019 tweet shared in the article said the lead in Diana’s coffin also helped to “protect her body from any paparazzi or obsessed fans using x-rays to see through the casket.”

Three-in-one

Prince Philip may have had the right idea when he had his casket made for him a full three decades before his death. A now-34-year-old California welder and artist constructed her own five-sided coffin during her senior year of college as she was “unconsciously processing the dread of leaving school and not having a clear idea of what life would look like.” Today, the casket sits in her living room, serving as a coffee table and storage for clothing, blankets, and pillows. She’s also hosted “coffin parties” where she “invites guests to lie in the coffin and contemplate their mortality.”

Website worries

Arlington National Cemetery is the final resting place for more than 400,000 individuals, including presidents, high-ranking military officials, and people who left their mark on the history of our country. Until recently, the names and accomplishments of some of the more notable inhabitants were listed on the cemetery’s website on pages that also highlighted aspects of their race, gender, or ethnicity (for example, one page highlighted the graves of Black soldiers). Last week, Arlington removed most of the pages from the website, citing President Trump’s executive orders to scrub content promoting “gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.” Officials told The New York Times that they are committed to restoring this content in accordance with the new guidelines as soon as possible. Although these separate listings and guides to these particular gravesites are no longer on the site, every grave within Arlington can still be found using the website’s ANC Explorer tool, a grave locator app.

I’m writing this article mid-morning on Saturday.  It’s already been a busy morning for me as I got up early and did my run and have since been to Starbucks for what I term my “Saturday Celebration Coffee” which celebrates my six consecutive days of running.  I take Sundays off!!

I’m also grateful for the fact that Angie and I spend three months in Florida during the winter and my run here this morning was in 68 degree F weather as compared to what I would have if I was in Minnesota today . . . . a minus 20 degree F day — that’s an 88 degree difference.  Now you see why in my retirement years I’ve leaned on at least a little time each winter in Florida!!!

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

On my “Saturday Celebration Coffee” days I always grab either the New York Times or Wall Street Journal hard copy and read it cover to cover.  That in itself is somewhat symbolic how buying habits have changed.  It’s the only day that I read a “hard copy” newspaper anymore after almost 60 years of reading the Minneapolis newspaper via hard copy starting when I was an elementary school student with the sports section spread out over our living room floor.  I point that out because even those of us in our 60’s do change our purchasing habits — and some funeral home owners I know don’t want to admit that fact.

In my reading today, I came across three items of potential expense to funeral home owners that I believe should be on your radar maybe more than they currently are because they may have some effect on your business moving forward.

Keeping Up with the Times —  An article from Fortune, which I cannot link for you because of a paywall, indicates that in the last part of 2024 companies like Party City, Big Lots, and the Container Store have filed for bankruptcy.  Here’s a couple of quotes from that article that should resonate with those in our profession who never want to change:

• ” . . . they largely have themselves, and their failure to adapt their business models to post-COVID shopper habits, to blame.”

• “. . . . the retailer let its stores get stale, and didn’t invest in the kind of tech for e-commerce and better in-store service needed to compete with Amazon or nimble brick-and-mortar rivals.” 

Debt —  I could not help but notice that the national average mortgage rate has moved up this week to 7.11%.  Here’s a link to a page where I found this statement “On Saturday, January 18, 2025, the current average interest rate for the benchmark 30-year fixed mortgage is 7.11%.”

That’s simply a reminder to watch your debt levels as we move forward in 2025.  Inflation has proved to be stickier than many of the experts thought and that has kept interest rates what they term “Higher for longer”.  My advice is be judicious about the debt you carry as these interest levels are higher than we have been used to and I also suggest that one should try to retire debt, even if it is little by little as cash is available, whenever possible.

Health Care Costs — When America’s largest insurer of Health Care makes the comment that health care needs to be “less complex and less confusing” as in this linked article from Seeking Alpha, there are probably some issues that need correcting.  Health Care spending in America was approximately $14,570 per person in 2023 — up 7.5% from 2022.

Those expenses, in many cases, are paid by corporate America.  In 2023  17.6% of America’s Gross Domestic Product was spent on Health Care. . . . . and if either the raw cost or the GDP percentage continues to grow there is a pretty good possibility your business will be asked to pay more of the costs.

Health Care premiums are pretty complicated but I learned that “Enhanced Premium Subsidies” for the Affordable Care Act were extended to the end of 2025 by the American Rescue Plan in 2021.  If not renewed, there is a possibility that pressure could go up for businesses to offer more and more coverages to employees.

Those are three items that I feel could alter your funeral home’s budget in 2025.  So, keep up with the times so you don’t lose revenue, watch your debt so that interest doesn’t take more and more of your potential profits, and make sure that you understand the Health Care issues of the day because if you don’t understand the options in front of you. . . .you are probably not getting the best results for the dollar spent.

Another potential expense in the future????    —  And, here’s one more expense to have on your long-term radar.  It won’t happen for a while but already a couple of states, Vermont and New York are planning to tax businesses for their roles in climate change.  One way that is under consideration to determine the tax dollar number owed by a specific business is a theory called “Attribution Science”.

“Attribution Science” would try to determine what percentage of environmental change comes from your business.  i.e. if you install solar panels you probably have “zero” percentage attributed to that business.  However, if you operate a gas station or are a gasoline powered delivery truck business you probably have some percentage “attributed” to you and pay a tax. . . . . The first thing I thought about when reading this is “Where will crematories show on the attribution range”?

Related — Lawmakers hope to use this emerging climate science to charge oil companies for disasters.  Stateline

Anyway. . . .I learned a lot in an hour with the New York Times and I celebrated another week of good health and the ability to still run a couple of miles a day!!!  Life is Good!!!

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