BS: What would you want on your headstone?

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: pict
Date: 11 May 02 - 10:47 PM

Don't step on the grass!

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 May 02 - 08:21 PM

Here's a part two for this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Mark Clark
Date: 11 May 02 - 07:23 PM

I'd like mine to say:

Born 1942 - Died 2092

I'm not going quietly.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Hilary
Date: 11 May 02 - 05:41 PM

Not a serious answer :

Martha snell, she's gone away,

She would if she could - but she couldn't stay

She'd two bad legs & a baddish cough

But twas her legs what carried her off.

Here lies the body of Mary Charlotte

Born a Virgin, died a harlot.

Until 15 she kept her vignity,

Which is a record for this 'ere vicinity.

English John - you beat me to it with " somebody else's name"

Hilary

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: GUEST,WyoWoman at Work
Date: 10 May 02 - 07:31 PM

I like, "Return to Sender..."

or

"Over my dead .... Ohhp... Nivver mind ..."

I want to be cremated and worked into a compost pile. Plant tomatoes, blackeyed peas and corn in what used to be me. Then let me be the salad bar at a great party next season ... "Mmmm, that's some saucy tomato..."

What do I hope can honestly be said of me when I move on to the next great adventure? "She lightened our load ..."

ww

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Joe_F
Date: 10 May 02 - 07:13 PM

Posterity will ne'er survey
A nobler grave than this:
Here lies the bones of Castlereagh:
Stop, traveler, -----.
-- Lord Byron, 1821

It would be worth being dead to have this written about you:

Here lies Sir Jenkin Grout, who loved his friend, and persuaded his enemy; what his mouth ate, his hand paid for: what his servants robbed, he restored: if a woman gave him pleasure, he supported her in pain: he never forgot his children: and whoso touched his finger, drew after it his whole body.
-- quoted by R. W. Emerson, 1841

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 10 May 02 - 10:07 AM

here's an inscription i read about somewhere

'here lies the body of elizabeth mann' who lived an old maid, and died an old mann'

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: mouldy
Date: 12 Apr 02 - 02:43 AM

Funnily enough, I was thinking about death etc. this morning, and decided I'm not afraid of it, but want to live as long as I can force my body to co-operate with some degree of dignity.

"I wasn't ready!" will do me fine.

To add to what John from Hull has posted re costs, I have just had the bill for adding my mum's name onto an already existing stone. Bearing in mind I went through the local undertaker who had dealt with it originally about 10 years ago at a cost then of about £560 (we live a long way from the cemetary, and it's in a little village), it has just cost me £470 to add my mum's details plus a one line verse (approx 60 characters in all) onto a square black stone. In some defence, it had to be removed, cleaned, carved (and they charge per letter - £1.10 10 years ago), regilded, redowelled, the site relevelled (it's on a hillside and had started to tilt) and a new base slab put in. Plus vat, and the churchyard fee.

Andrea

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Apr 02 - 01:14 PM

Here are some more possibilities for what to put on your headstone...

1. "What are YOU lookin' at?"

2. "Your fly is open..."

3. "Out to lunch."

4. "Post no bills."

5. "George Washington didn't sleep here."

6. "78 miles to Schenectady." (alter distance as appropriate to your location...the humour in this is...who the hell wants to go to Shenectady?)

7. Mount a red button on the front (like a doorbell button), with a plaque below it saying "Don't Push This Button".

When they do, a jet of water shoots out of a little nozzle mounted on the tombstone, and hits 'em in the face.

The plaque then flips around to display the message "I TOLD You Not To Push It!" Whole device then resets itself, and waits for next visitor.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Apr 02 - 01:18 AM

My feet, on sleepless night's a reversal of bed positions assures a decent desent in the dessines of darkness releam.

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 10 Apr 02 - 06:45 AM

If I was planning to be interred (which I'm not) the thing which I would like most to have on my headstone is

A BEER PUMP !

I used to have a book of epitaphs (entitled something like "A book of Grave Humour"). A couple of my favourites were a Mr Thorpe who had "THORPE'S CORPSE" on his tombstone and a village spinster/busybody of whom 'twas recorded something like:

Here lie the bones of Elizabeth Dyas,
Always noisy - very pious.
She reached her three score years and ten,
And gave to the worms what she'd kept from the men.

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 10 Apr 02 - 02:07 AM

I once wrote a condolence card to the widow of my former headmaster, who had often styled himself "Head Gardener".

I wrote an except from a poem:

The gardener at last
Has finished his season soil-tending
And is called by his Master
Who wishes to show him an unending
Eden.

Next thing I knew, I received word that she had carved it on the stone as an epitaph. I had always wanted to be a published author, but carved in stone...! Gak.

o if you're ever wondering about the creative epitaphs in a certain cemetery in Washington, Connecticut, there's one of the stories.

--Charlie Baum

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: GUEST,long arm
Date: 09 Apr 02 - 10:50 PM

FRom the Fureys, "Our town was a real tough one and all the hard nuts were buried in one corner of the graveyard with headstones that readfor example" Who are you looking at then"!!

My wife reckons that when she goes she wants'My turn for a lie-in'!!

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Apr 02 - 09:47 PM

...a personal favorite, from the fictitious(?) headstone of a fictitious(?) character in "Trout Fishing In America," by Richard Brautigan:

"Sacred to the memory of John Brown, who got his ass shot off in a honky-tonk. This mason jar of wilted flowers was left here by his sister, who is in the crazy house now."*

*(quoted from faulty memory)

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Shonagh
Date: 09 Apr 02 - 01:32 PM

Stop passenger as you pass by, As you are now so once was I, Remember man that you must lie, Remember man, that you must die.

Saw it on a gravestone near my house. Quite similar to the one that "guest" knows.

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Micca
Date: 09 Apr 02 - 10:11 AM

guest, and of course the Graffito that was appended

" To follow you I am quite content

but Im blowed if I know which way you went!"

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Apr 02 - 09:31 AM

Per Banjoest's reference, the old English epitaph:

Behold, you see me as you pass by, As you are now, so once was I, As I am now, so you shall be, Prepare for Death and follow me.

Cryptically cool.

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: GUEST,Uncle Frank
Date: 09 Apr 02 - 12:42 AM

On a sundial in a NJ cemetary: "Time flies, suns rise, and shadows fall." I've always liked that one. Nonetheless, my favorite is a poem by Walt Kelly, the genius who gave us Pogo Possum: The gentle journey jars to stop The drifting dream is done. The long gone goblins loom ahead, The deadly, that we thought were dead Stand waiting, every one.

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: The Walrus
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 05:41 PM

For my parents, I didn't really know what to put on their stone so I just added a statement that I believe to be true.
REMEMBERED-THEY LIVE ON As for myself, I'll settle for
NOT JUST ANOTHER SUBURBAN W*NKER

Best Wishes

Walrus

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Shonagh
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 05:26 PM

I once read this in a book. On headstone of a magician:

Here today, gone tomorrow, Not one of his repeated tricks!

Seriously tho, it isnt something that i have ever thot about. i hope i wont have to think about it for a good few years, since im only 16! scary thought tho, saying that a few of my close friends in the past few years have died in car crashes and meningitis. dont really want to think about it that much. i trust my family to find something nice to put on my headstone! maybe a fiddle or something?!

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: oombanjo
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 05:21 PM

I did not know your other half.BUT if he was a banjo player you could put (I hope there are banjo players in heaven?, if there is'nt, there is now.) Or if he had any attached parts, the epitaph could be. (RUST IN PEACE.)

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: GUEST,Just Amy
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 05:08 PM

My English grandmother always said this headstone was real:

"Wherever you be, let your wind blow free, for to keep in a fart, was the death of me."

Eat, drink and be merry as long as oil remaineth in the lamp for who knows if in the other world there be a tavern.

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: GUEST,Lyle
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 04:57 PM

Don't have anything better than what has been suggested,

BUT

For those who want no part of any headstone, I would ask you to rethink your position. As an armature genealogist, the dates, names and locations of markers are very often an excellent place to start when little or no other information is available. And sometimes you become very important to later generations.

Lyle

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: GUEST,skippy
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 04:42 PM

"just what I expected, but not this soon!"

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: GUEST,savindwales
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 04:36 PM

i always liked an epitaph written by robert heinlein,"He ate what was put before him".

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 04:29 PM

Don't blame me. I didn't ask to come here.

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: GUEST,Triban
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 03:43 PM

The Anglo-Welsh author Caradoc Evans (1878-1945)has on his gravestone at Y Gors near Aberystwyth, an inscription of his own composition which reads: 'Bury me lightly that the small rain shall reach my face and the fluttering of the butterfly shall not escape my ear'. I'm not necessarily recommending it - just as a matter of interest.

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Amos
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 03:24 PM

BBW was wrestling with this question recently as part of a seminar exercise. She was getting all glum about it. I finally came up with a suggestion she could really smile at:

Her Magic is Still Working!

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: swirlygirl
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 02:55 PM

English Jon, you should just have a big superman "H"...

:)

xxx

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: English Jon
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 09:38 AM

Somebody else's name.

EJ

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: rube1
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 07:24 AM

HOLIER THAN THOU

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 12:31 AM

In the words of MacArthur, "I Shall Return", but don't wait up.

Eb

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: GUEST,Annraoi
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 10:05 PM

"I'M BAAAAACK!!!!!!!!"
Annraoi :-)))

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: swirlygirl
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 08:43 PM

"Do I smell of garlic?"

:)

xxx

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Big John
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 08:24 PM

I have a ditty which I hope someone may read at the piss-up before they burn me. "I laugh at life, I laugh at death, The Reaper hasn't got me yet, But when at last you read these lines, I'll know that I have done my time, I want no grief I want no tears, Just sing the songs and drink the beer, My earthly body may be gone, But I'm still here, So PARTY ON !!!!"

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Nemesis
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 06:26 PM

I live across the road from a large municipal cemetary and I must say people are very boring with what they put on headstones... which doubtless inspired one wag to add the graffiti to "Only sleeping"

'AND FOOLING NO ONE BUT HIMSELF'

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 03:24 PM

Here lies the body of William Gray
Who died maitaining his right of way
He was right, so right as he drove along
But he's just as dead as if he were wrong
Failte.....Giok

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Amergin
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 08:33 PM

sure they could, Gnu...."PLOP"

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: kendall
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 08:32 PM

I have opted for cremation too, but, that's what I want on my urn. (What I posted before)

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: gnu
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 08:29 PM

Wellll, okaaaayyy, Edain. But, perhaps the could SAY something at the burial that might evoke some passion, some comedy, some LIFE ?

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Edain
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 08:08 PM

I don't want a tombstone or any kind of marker. If possible I'd like to be buried at sea. Dunno why but I just don't want the whole grave/headstone/cemetary thing.

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Gareth
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 05:32 PM

Seaweed and Coral

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: C-flat
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 05:07 PM

"Here lies the body of Will McGray, who would maintain his right of way, his way was right, his will was strong, but he's just as dead as if he'd been wrong" Can't remember who wrote that but it amused me.

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 03:23 PM

Please Recycle.

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: allanwill
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 01:30 PM

Gravestones cheer the living, dear,
they're no use to the dead.

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Allan

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: GUEST,celtic cousin
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 12:43 PM

My uncle who was an auctioneer and passed only very recently requested:

HERE LIES COL. BERNIE SCHMITT - AUCTIONEER GOING...GOING...GONE!

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 10:53 AM

I have instructed my Beautiful Wife, if in fact I get there before she does, to have inscribed on my headstone:

A Gentleman and a Scholar--and a Lover

That combination expresses succinctly the three key ways I'd like to be remembered.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 10:02 AM

"I'd rather be in Disney World"

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: smallpiper
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 09:05 AM

To quote the big yin "Jesus is it that time already" or oh bugger!

Subject: RE: BS: What would you want on your headstone?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 07:17 AM

Birdshit...