Not-So-Grave Undertakings

These might be hard times for most businesses, but one industry sees such boom times ahead it is unable to contain itself. Gleefully it contacted my friend the other day, startling her to the core.

It was a flier from the local cemetery.

She's 36.

Let's just say this is one notice she didn't immediately put up on her fridge. Then again, when you realize that the funeral biz is gearing up for the big kahuna — baby boomers — you can understand why it's so jazzed. It must be like owning a trading post in sleepy San Fran when all of a sudden: Gold! Everyone just wants to get a piece of the action.

Or, in the case of morticians, inaction.

That same excitement means that for the first time perhaps since the invention of dry ice, funeral folks are getting creative. They've got new hearses, crypts, new ways of making the end more fun (at least for everyone else). What's more, they seem to understand that we want to make our deaths meaningful.

To that end, a company called Eternal Reefs will take a person's ashes and turn them into a man-made "reef ball," where fish can hang out. George Frankel, head of the Atlanta-based company, said that loved ones call him because they don't know what to do with their "shelf people."

You know, people in urns sitting on the shelf. Turning shelf people into reef balls actually helps the environment by giving fish new habitats. But it gives families something, too: a chance to hang out together. They can bring the ashes to the company's manufacturing hub in Florida and participate in making the ball. "I don't mean to say we put the 'fun' in 'funeral,'" said Frankel. "But the whole family can come for a beach vacation." Sounds good to me.

Over at the Cedar Park and Beth El cemeteries in New Jersey, they're thinking more traditionally — at least more traditionally than turning people into fish furniture — but still with an eye toward 21st-century idiosyncrasies.

So they're building luxury condos, aka crypts, that are heated, air-conditioned and extremely well-lit, all the better for eternal comfort. Said a salesman there, "We can't build them fast enough."

Even the most old-fashioned burial grounds are trying to become more welcoming. In southeastern Michigan, members of the Mt. Elliott Cemetery Association are hosting concerts, photo contests, charity runs — anything to bring people in (while they're still upright).

And when they come in by hearse? There's innovation there, too. The Eagle Coach Company of Cincinnati has responded to the increase in cremations by inventing the "urn enclave." Pull a lever and the enclave flips up from the floor of the hearse to hold and display the loved one's ashes. Holy human remains, Batman!

We have traditional burials, crypts, cremations and reef balls, but Mark Duffey saw yet another need to address: choice. He's started a company called Everest, a funeral "concierge" business, which is less silly than it sounds. For a flat fee of about $500, you can call his company whenever, ahem, the need arises. They've got the country's only database of almost every funeral home's prices, so they can figure out what you need and who offers it and then do all the negotiating for you — fast.

Those of us looking ahead, however tentatively, have to be grateful to this whole industry for showing that least likely quality: movement. And for finally thinking outside the box.

Lenore Skenazy is a columnist at Advertising Age. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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