Funerals and Weddings (Okay Just Funerals)...

The two aforementioned occasions usually generate the most memorable stories. I am sure I mentioned a couple of funerals before. I haven't been to a wedding in forever so you will have to wait on those stories. That said...

My Aunt passed last week. The funeral was this past Saturday. This is a new one for the books!

Things started out normal. Got there with a minimum of muss and fuss and on time. The ceremony was probably the least abnormal one I have been to in a long time. The main glitch in this one being that the organist didn't show. So we got some spirituals acapella. Not too bad with a little audience participation.

Then things got a little weird. They told us to get in our cars and turn on our lights if we were heading to the cemetery. That is the last clear instruction given. Long story short, I ended up driving around like a mouse in a maze just to end up back in the parking spot I started in. Which of course means that I was at the back of the procession. ALL the way at the back. Usually the end car is the biggest damn thing that pulled up in the lot. I think in this one there were several at the front. Then where the line was forming was completely unclear. THEN somebody came after me and took the last position and borrowed one of the two flags on the roof. So things finally get moving, at HIGH speed. By the time I started moving good I realized that I was driving about 10 mph over the speed limit! Most processions I have been in were 10 under. Not this one! I don't know where what was because there was a van two cars in front or me and I don't think that driver knew what the hell to do. We alternated between bat outta hell and stop for three lights at the same spot mode. At one point it actually stopped and those of us at the end of the line were blocking a major street just sitting there. Looking stupid of course. Through no fault of our own, but stupid nonetheless! Finally we get going again and some dude with a death wish and a complete lack of understanding of what my family name is, and means, decides to pull a bonehead! How boneheaded do you ask? He passes several of our cars on our left (same direction) and when he arrives at his turn, what do you think he did? Stop and wait? No! I said bonehead! Slide into the funeral line (illegally) and then turn? No dammit! I said death wish! This fool ass makes a right turn from the left lane BETWEEN the two cars in front of me WHILE WE WERE STILL MOVING AT FULL SPEED (about 40). NEVER have I seen the like!

Of course the fun is not over because we pass a hearse in front of another church. I didn't know if it was ours or another funeral queuing up to leave themselves. Somehow that hearse managed to catch and pass us. I thought it was ours catching back up after having stopped for whatever reason. I guess I was wrong. As we approached the logical turn for the burial site, I watched my father's car (with flag) turn the corner. The two cars behind him turned too. The three cars in front of me kept straight! So did I! So now that line of cars that I had suspected of being separated were definitely separated now! So I turned my blinker on. The next light was a street that led to the cemetery along the north side of the airport that it adjoins. Luckily everybody else turned too! So now there are four or five cars with funeral flags rolling down Outer Drive with no hearse. The van behind me shoots around me and the car that was on the street before we turned. Suddenly we are all doing about 20 or 25 over the speed limit in some kinda morbid street race from The Fast and The Furious or something. Strangely enough we got to the cemetery gates as the FRONT of the funeral procession was waiting to turn left into the cemetery. That was the first time I EVER got there before the departed did! But there were already family members parked and waiting when we got there! So a group got there before we did. We arrived just before the hearse. The hearse with most of the rest of the group. Yeah, I know you just MOST of the rest? The fourth group, which included my father (remember?), ended up at ANOTHER cemetery because they got mixed in with the funeral line from the other church!

And don't even get me started on how some of these folk dressed!!!!