DEAD END
I thought I had heard all of the mortician's jokes, but someone asked me recently if I had heard about the young girl who was studying to be a mortician. She was asked why she had chosen that type of work?“Because",she replied,"I have always enjoyed working with people"”
It may be that my career has not been in the particular field to which that girl aspired, but in my army years I worked in the morgue at a military hospital long enough to become acquainted with he terminology and atmosphere associated so readily by many people when in the presence of Death. That was an odd experience to have in the army right after basic training days, but I have always been grateful for the opportunity which was mine for I was to witness Death many times in the years ahead.
It came about because the army suddenly found it had completed thirteen weeks of basic training for a battalion of infantry medics who were not needed. There was a sudden glut on the market for the type of medics we had been trained to be. More recruits were on the way. So, it seemed like a good thing to do might be to ship the maturing stock out. About six hundred of us were suddenly transferred from the U. S. Army into the U. S. Army Air Corp; trucked a hundred miles east toward the Atlantic coastline where we quartered in an empty aircraft hanger - all six hundred of us of us as one big, steel-cotted crew sleeping where fighter planes were warmed up every morning to help the sun rise.
Oddly enough, such illogical logic improved our lot, we felt.We would be needed in the base hospital area or in Air Corps cadre sent out to new bases from time to time. I responded to the situation and drifted into various jobs until my chance to ship out came up. More strange logic entered the picture when I was shipped out as a “Teletype Operator”. One buddy whom we had just taught to read and the write, who had a job of firing the hospital's coal-fired furnace was dubbed with a non-com rating, and shipped out as a"“ Surgical Assistant". He was about as experienced in his new work area as I was in operating a teletype machine.
Among my hospital jobs, I worked for a time in the hospital Morgue. It was really not that new. I had been in various funeral homes and morgues in my newspaper reporting days.
After the war I went into radio-tv and technical writing for some years and when retired I took a part-time job with a local undertaking establishment. I was a driver, as a rule, a "greeter”, I suppose you would say, at one of several parlors the firm operated, but I had not been there but a few weeks when the front office asked me what my"ffeelings" were concerning helping out in the morgue. They were often short-handed there and really needed help at times. So, back to the morgue once more! I was"working with people"”, just as I did when driving families from place to place.
I have been think about this all week, because the" front office" lady who asked me if I would object to helping out in the morgue for a few days, died the other day. She married into business, but, I think, she would have agreed with the young girl who was planning to be mortician. It may seem odd to people who have never done it ... been there.
A.L.M April 25, 2003 [c903wds]
