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Selects: How Coffins Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: How to everyone. It's Saturday morning, and this is your
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: weekly Selects episode aka Stuff You Should Know reruns handcrafted
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: and curated by me, Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and my
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: lovely and handsome co host Joshua Clark. This week, I
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: am on the hook for this one, and so I'm
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: going to pick how coffins work. From May thirtieth, twenty thirteen.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I feel like we kind of came down a little
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: bit hard on the funerary industry on this one. These
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: coffins are expensive. Boy, oh boy, who wants to pay
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: that kind of money once you're dead? Not me to
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: grind me up and plant me as a tree or something,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: or maybe just throw me on the woods and let
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the worms take care of it at any rate. That's
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: my journey, not yours. I don't want to yuck anyone's yum.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: If you want a big, fancy mahogany coffin, go for it.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: The podcast is going to teach you all about him.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Please enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast on Josh Clark. There's
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and this is Stuff you Should
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: know the podcast.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: This is part of our ongoing death Sweet, which is sweet.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We've covered death a lot because death is multifaceted,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: sure you know. And this reminded me of the I
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: guess we covered green burial not in its own podcast
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: yet and like different ways to what to do with
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the dead body. There you go, That's what I thought
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: it was into.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: But I'm surprised we didn't do a podcast dedicated just
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: to that.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe we should. Yeah, I looked up because I'm interested
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: in that for myself. And there are some lovely places
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: right outside Atlanta.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: To be buried Greenley, Yeah, where you can just.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Be wrapped in a shroud and buried in the field,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: which ripped to death by coyotes.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Left in a field.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: They don't leave you, no, well they bury you in
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: a shallow grade.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Oh okay for the coyotes to come get you.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: No, they said they don't have a problem with that.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: But I'm not one of those people that cares about that.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, about what happens to your body, Like I would
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: do a sky burial.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: That wouldn't bother me for vultures to pick me apart,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Like use the body if it would feed an animal.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Great, why not donate it to science.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe I'll do that. I'm not precious about that
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: my body after death. I'm not precious about my body
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: in life. Why start then, exactly? Yeah, that's funny. Yeah.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: So anyway, Well, a shroud does kind of technically count
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: as a coffin chuck, Yeah, back in the day if
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: you didn't have a lot of money.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Right, or if you're into being picked apart by coyotes.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: But the whole point of a coffin, or what constitutes
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: a coffin is it provides a barrier between the body
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: and the ground. Yeah, and technically a shroud does that.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: It's a really, really poor coffin. Yeah, but that's the
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: whole point. It's that the body is encapsulated in something
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: that just dropping a body into a grave is undignified.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: You might say even cremating a body without some form
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: or fashion of a coffin is considered undignified. And you'll
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: be hard pressed to find a crematorium that will let
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: you just put your loved one on the conveyor belt
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: and let them just kind of flop lifelessly toward the flames.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I don't think they flop.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, if they're jostled, they're gonna flop. Okay, yeah,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: especially after Rigger's done.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: The coffin the word coffin. We're not gonna do any
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Merriam Webster stuff because that's who would start an article like.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: That or do it six times in an article.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: But we will say we'd like to give root words.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: And of course Greek and Latin are involved here with
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: the Greek koffinos and Latin koffin uts. M h. They're
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: always like, oh yeah, I'll change that kto a C
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and that O too a.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: U, and no one will ever even remember the Greeks
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: happen exactly.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: So that's where the word coffin came from. But here
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: in the United States we generally refer to that vessel
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: as a casket, whereas in places like England and Australia
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Great Britain and Australia they might say coffin,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: even though a lot of people here think that's like
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: a word you shouldn't use.
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  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, their casket still means a place to keep
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: your valuables.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Right right, your bubbles right yeah.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Here in the US, if you go to a funeral
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: directorium also called a funeral home. You're going to find
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: that they'd never use the word coffin.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: No, and you know it's pretty subtle, but the language
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: is definitely. They don't say, uh, we'd love to pick
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: out for you to pick out a coffin for your
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: husband's dead body, and then we'll dig a grave over
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: there and put it in the ground. Wah that we'll
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: say things like we would like you to pick out
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: a casket for your husband and.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: From our display area, from the display.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Area, and we will take you there in the casket coach,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: not a hearse, and and place him in the internment space,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: which is not.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: A grave opened, and then we'll close afterward, rather than
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: filling or digging the grave.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: They don't say words like digging and ground.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Basically anything that brings to mind the guy from Phantasm.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Those the funeral industry avoids those words.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And of course we've ruined six feet under and
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the Fisher and Sons the boys such a great Yoh,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Michael always did such a great job of, you know,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: being the proper funeral director and using all the all
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the words that you should use, like casket.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: He's good at it. And then he turned into a
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: serial killer.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: No, well, dexter.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so there actually is a distinction beyond where you
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: live with the word casket in coffin. Sure, there's a
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: slight difference. Shape, Yeah, it's it's all. It's basically shape.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: A casket is a long rectangle and the top is
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: usually split, so you can know that's a coffin. That's
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: a casket.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a casket. Coffin is the hexagonal a
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: hexagonal box. Yeah, and that you know, back in the
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: day he had the old pine box. Actually a lot
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: of those were just rectangular, but some were you know,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: had that familiar sort of keyhole shape.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Well, back in the day, in the nineteenth century, the
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: person who was responsible for carrying out your funeral services
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: and building your coffin was usually the local carpenter, and
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: he undertook your funeral service, hence the word undertaker from
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: what I understand, Yeah, but it was usually somebody who
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: built wagons and kitchens and whatever. They also built coffins too,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: and they built them to suit.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: That sounded to me like our first casket. Fact. Well done, Chuck, wow, Yeah,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: thank you Jerry for going the extra mile there.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: And if you like that, you're going to love this
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: episode because this place is lousy with casket facts.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we won't play the sound effect on this one.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: But I thought another interesting fact, because you know, I
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: like origins of phrases and things. If someone casts a
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Pall over a room, yeah, a Paul was actually a
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: dark cloth that they would put over the casket to
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: I guess cover, you know, block out the bad juju
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: of having the dead body in there. Right, So you
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: would cast a Paul over the casket.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Or if you're me, you cast a Paul over
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: any room you enter. That's fun, no fun anymore, everybody
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: can Can we talk a little bit about the funeral
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: industry for a second. Yeah, about the casket industry, I
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: should say specifically, there's still some furniture companies that make
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: caskets on the side, like Lazy Boy.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: I don't know if Lazy Boy does it, but there's
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: they represent a very small shit of the casket that's an.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Ultimate lazy boy. You know your forever chair.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: Right exactly. Well, they actually have caskets for those people.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: It's called Goliath Caskets. Oversized Caskets, Order Oversized Caskets dot com.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Huh. Anyway, of course, there's someone that does that, because
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: that's a common thing. You know, caskets aren't you know
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: some people of girth. Sure, that's pretty embarrassing, you know,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: when you can't fit in your casket.
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  Speaker 2: Right, And I went and looked, and these are very
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: dignified caskets.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: They're just larger.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: They're for the larger person.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Double widse. Wow.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: There's also uh okay, so one of the largest casket makers, Batesville,
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  Speaker 2: originally started out as.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: A furniture company.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: So there's like this whole origin of yeah, I'll build
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: your chair and I'll build your coffin for your uncle too.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: That makes sense, it's carpentry.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And then that's kind of the way it went.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: There were some some groups that started to consolidate and
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: just make caskets around the late the turn of the
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: twentieth century, the beginning of the twentieth century, and you know,
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: that was fine. They kind of created the industry. And
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: then it was like the fifties after the Korean War,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: when metal caskets became like all a rage.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because that was mod looking and that was popular
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: at the time. It was.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: And you'll also find in the funeral industry it was
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: easy to subtly exploit the grieving out of their money.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: There it was very cheap to mass produce metal caskets,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: and so they were sold, sold, sold, There was a
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: huge profit margin with them, and I think by the
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: seventies half of all caskets were metal.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, because what better way to protect your loved
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: one from the elements and the harsh afterlife that they
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: may encounter than with a good old solid metal in casing,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: yes exactly, which also happens to be have greater profit margins,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: and it's cheaper to produce, so.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: It is it's cheaper to mass produce the other aspect
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: of a metal coffin. In the rise of the metal coffin,
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: it changed the casket making industry because it's really expensive
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: to get into metal coffin making. Apparently it costs about
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: a million dollars just for the dies to make a
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: standard metal coffin, just for the dies alone. So this
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: kind of consolidated the industry down to fewer and fewer
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: companies that were making metal caskets, so it became a
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: real industry at that point. And then ultimately the casket
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: industry started to suffer and decline thanks to advances in
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: medicine there were fewer deaths, so their profits.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Dropped or the revenue dropped.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: And then starting in the eighties, people said, you know what,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: maybe cremation isn't so bad, right, And so in nineteen
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: eighty five, I think fifteen percent of people opted for cremation,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: and then by two thousand, I think, no, twenty eleven,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: it's like forty five percent. Oh really, yeah, and every
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: time somebody gets cremated, the coffin industry dies a little bit.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, although you know, like you said, you can still
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: have a casket to be cremated in I know, we
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: covered this in the Cremation podcast.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well you have to, like you can't find somebody
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: who just let your.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: But that can be super cheap. Like sometimes it's even cardboard.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Well it's supposed to because it's got to burn.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean at the very least wood will
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: also burn. But you can you can spend a little
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: bit more money, or you can get a temporary encasing,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: an outer encasing that is more attractive to show the family.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: And then when push comes to shove, they shove. They
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: remove the outer casket and shove. Yeah, you in.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: It's like a rental casket just for the service.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and it can actually rent caskets period, like
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: even if you aren't being cremated, just for a more
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: showy experience and then they'll, you know, then you get
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: the pine box treatment, right because nobody loves you. Yeah,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: and it's expensive, man, people, a lot of people don't
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: have the money to pay for a big funeral, and
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of people really believe in that kind
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: of thing. Is really sad for them, you know, it is.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Luckily there's such a thing as Walmart and Costco. Both
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: of them sell caskets. Walmart has a casket for eleven
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: ninety nine one ninety nine dollars, it's the Lady of
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Our Lady of Guadalupe casket model. And then Costco Yeah okay,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: and then Costco has the same same model for one
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: hundred bucks more.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Really.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was surprised that it's not exactly the same.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: But it's nice to see that the big box retailers
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: aren't price fixing coffins.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great to see Walmart's on coffins.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: But I mean it's like that, you if you need
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: a coffin and they're attractive looking coffins, I think they're fiberglass.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Have you ever laid down in a coffin? Probably not,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: I haven't. I haven't either. I would just to see
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: what it felt like. They look compy.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Did you see the thing about the six feet Under
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Club in San Francisco? There is a club where it's like, hey,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: you and your partner, life part swinging partner, shartner, whatever
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: you yeah, your sex partner.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Let's just call it what it is.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Can Wright can come lay down in our coffin and
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: will bury you and you guys can do it, and
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: we are going to watch you on a night vision
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: webcam that's going to be projected on the walls of
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: the club above versus San Francisco, San Francisco six Feet
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Under Club, and you can email and reserve a space
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: in their coffin.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Huh is there? I mean, is there any room in
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the coffin this preak.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: I'd imagine it would have to be a larger, but
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: maybe a goliath coffin double one?
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, huh, Well I will never do that, but it's
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: interesting to know it's out there. It is out there
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: in San Franciscos, like knowing my options. Well, let's talk
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: about the anatomy of a coffin, chuckers h. Well, you know,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the most important thing, of course, is that it is
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: a barrier too, from the body to the you know,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: the elements. No one, Actually I don't care, like I
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: already said, but most people, most normal people don't want
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: to think about their loved ones bodies like decaying and
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: being eaten by you know, being worm dirt. But one
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: thing they cannot tell you is that it's illegal to
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: say that we have a casket that will permanently seal
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: the body, Like it's against the law to claim any
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: sort of permanence, even if it's one of these new
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: gasket coffins. What are those called. It's called a protective coffin, yeah,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: which actually has a rubber gasket, so it sealed much tighter.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: But they still legally can't say like it'll protect them forever.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Right, because it will protect them from the elements. But
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: there is such a thing as decay, like your body's
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: going to decay in the nothingness. And apparently, I guess
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: the funeral industry was selling coffins based on the idea
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: that the body was going to survive forever. Yeah, and
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: with this impermeable seal that the protective coffins had. I
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: mean it wasn't letting anything in, but it also wasn't
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: letting anything out, which is a problem. And in an
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: air tight environment, anaerobic bacteria gets to work and as
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: they start putrefying the flesh, they expel methane gas as
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: a byproduct. And there's this thing called exploding coffin syndrome,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: which was most apparent in mausoleums, where a coffin would
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: just blow up, and sometimes they would blow up so
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: much that it would blow the mausoleum door open. Yeah,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: like a huge methane explosion from the gas built up
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: from the decaying corpse in this protective coffin. So now
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: they have ones that that don't let anything in, but
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: they burp gas out.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're called burping coffins, which is a great name
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: for a coffin.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but so is exploding casket syndrome.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Boy, could you imagine being a cemetery worker and
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: seeing a mausoleum door explode wide open? Yeah, you're just
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: like seeing it. Oh, I would quit my job that day.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: So it depends on where you are in the world.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: What you're going to get with your with your coffin
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: and with regulations, you know, and less developed countries. Obviously
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: they're less regulated. You could still be wrapped in a
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: shroud in some parts of the world.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Right here in the US, in the West, they're basically
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: public health regulations, which is why that that place for
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: the green burial is designated a green burial place.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm sure.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: You the body won't come in contact with the groundwater,
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: I think is what they're trying to keep from happening.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was in their fac Yeah.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: So that's pretty much the whole public health regulation, and
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: it's gotten to the point where most most people are
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: buried with cement encasement around them, right.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, is that what they do these days? I think so. Yeah,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I think I knew that.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Actually, it's so funny, like we're all still six year
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: olds at our court.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: It's like, ewe, dead body. Gross. I can't let that
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: get into the water. Yeah, that stuff doesn't bother me.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: You gets bodies, no not. I wouldn't want to drink
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: a dead body now, but seeing one, I mean, I'm
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the guy who poked a head floating in a bucket,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: you know, in the hospital that way. Yeah, yeah, I
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: forgot about that story. I didn't poke it, but I
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: mentally poked it. It didn't bother me. If you are
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: in the Western world, you're probably gonna be dealing with
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: wood or metal or fiberglass. If you live out in
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: the desert, they may use things like local products like
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: clay or stone, which is kind of interesting. I guess
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: we got a lot of wood here in the United
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: States though. Particle board yep. And like we mentioned the sad,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: sad cardboard cremation vessel.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Right, which, again, if you're being cremated, you probably don't care.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I was also up for cremation, and then I thought,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know, is there anything that's in the green
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: burial seems like a good option.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Sure, just become one with the dirt.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Maybe, but I like the idea being scattered as well.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: Or again helping somebody helping other people.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but they'll still like if you donate your body
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: to science, did they not give you any sort of like.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: No, you can't be EMBALMD or anything. I guess you
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: probably could if like, say you're going to the body farm.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't be able to be INBALMD. Sure, and I'm.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Sure there's like memorial services but I don't as I
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: understand it. That's another thing that's eating into the casket
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: industry's profits is body donation. Hey man, I think this
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: is a perfect time to have a message break from
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: our sponsor agreed, which means our jingle.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Fish. All right, So I think this is actually a
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: great time for a second casket. Fact.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Oh, I like these already.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: All right. Back in the day, in the early nineteenth century,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: that was sort of a they called it a grave
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: body snatching period, and people were into snatching up bodies,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: digging up graves, exhooming people, if you will, and basically
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: selling bodies for money for medical research. It was a
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: way to make a buck or doing research on your own.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Medical College of Georgia was they found dozens of skeletons.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: I was like, I think it was one hundreds, dozens
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: of skeletons of people who were dismembered, and they figured
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: out that all of them had been stolen from graves.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: I remember that. Yeah, of course that wasn't in the
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: early nineteenth century, was it.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: It was in the nineteenth century, Now, it was early,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: but it was.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: It was in the nineteenth So they developed something well,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: various things to you know, protect bodies like locked mausoleums
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: and vaults, and then something I think it's kind of
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: eat called a mort safe, which is basically an iron
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: cage put over the coffin. It's like sunk into concrete.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: It's like what people used to protect their air conditioners today. Yeah, exactly,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: but over like a grave.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: So that that was a mort safe and that kept
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: people out. They had guards, sometimes staffed guards.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: I think the money the caretaker doubles as a guard,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: but they had people who they hired as guards would
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: protect a specific grave.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: I think if you had enough dough, wow, you could
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: have like, you know, the mausoleum with a guard. That's
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. And that's you know, that's if you're rich
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: and wealthy.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: They were also if you weren't wealthy. The other way
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: to thwart grave robbers was to put heavy planks, yeah,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: to backfill the grave with rocks instead of dirt, which
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: might not have kept somebody out, but they would have
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: made quite a bit of noise digging you up. Sure,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: and uh yeah, have you ever been to Oakland Cemetery?
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I go all the time, Well not all
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: the time, but I go. It is BEAUTIFU couple of
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: times a year. Yeah, you me and I went and
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: just did like this, just walked around. Yeah, like there's
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: some there's some mausoleums there that like there's no way
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: you could have gotten into. Yeah, for those people that
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: haven't been to Atlanta, that is what our probably oldest
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: and like most famous cemetery. Yeah, it is our Parade
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: de la Che.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: It's a yes, it's our Nicholas.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: I've been to that one too, actually, the one in Paris,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: what Parade de Lache? Oh is it the one with
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Jim Morrison. Yeah, of course nice, And I think Oscar
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Wilde is there and Chopin Well, but you know, Morrison's
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: the one that you go by and there's like joints
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: on the ground and like tabs of acid and stuff,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: and then you always see like the random guy kind
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: of hanging out like waiting for everyone to turn their back,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: a bunch of dirty hippies, basically.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Jackets give me a break.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: In Ghana and other parts of Africa, it is kind
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: of cool because they will they have a very sort
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: of a joyous way of celebrating death with their bright
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: colored coffins and even odd shapes that would pay honor
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: to what this person loved in life. I saw one
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: that was like a giant shoe and this sky, this
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: this Attacan dude was just like, you know, it must
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: have been as relative and he was just so proud
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: to show that they were bearing him in a giant shoe.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: So it's like it's like to the dead in Ghana,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: what a pinata.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Is to like a kid in Mexico.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Really, yeah, they have like pinanas that are like shaped
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: for they're like different specific Yeah.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not always just a kooka burro.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: No, Okay, there's like's a hello and like really yeah, yeah,
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: there's there's some great piontas out there.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: And then the other example they gave in here is
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: like if it was a businessman, he might be buried
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: in something that resembled his luxury car, Yeah, I saw.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Or a fisherman, it might be a fish shaped coffin.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: The fish finally got him back.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: He's in the belly of it.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: So, Chuck, you mentioned things that coffins may be made
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: out of. Yeah, you mentioned like wood, fiberglass.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Elm oak, hardywoods.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Bronze is still used on occasion. Yeah, sure, And that's
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: the shell of the coffin. Yeah, and then the inside
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: you'll find the lining, usually some sort of rich fabric
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: like taffeta or velvet or something that looks like that.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Maybe valure if they like juicy clothes that.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Kind of thing, Yeah, silk maybe, Yeah.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: And it's stuffed with batting, yeah, to keep the corpse
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: nice and comfortable. Sure, And that's pretty much it. You've
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: got hardware on the outside, and that's a casket.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's probably gonna be warm colors here in the
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Western world. Old, it's not Ghana. You're not gonna see
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of like brightly painted coffins and stuff like that.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: No, but also they kind of avoid like you're probably
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: I can see a black coffin anywhere.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Those are called receding colors. They're they're dismal and of
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: desperation and despair.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: I feel like I've seen a lot of like light
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: gray and things like that. Yeah, or just wood color.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: If you get like a really nice wood, like cherry,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: sometimes it'll just be in that, you know, that'll be
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the outer shell.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Right, And those are pricy, yes, they are. As a
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: matter of fact, the average cost of a funeral in
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: the US in two thousand and nine was six five
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: hundred and sixty, which was less than I thought.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: I think a green barrel is about half that.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can see that.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I think they're like two or three grand.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Because the coffin in that average funeral was two two
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: hundred and ninety five dollars the average cost of a
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: metal coffin in two thousand and nine, which in two
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: thousand and seven, funeral homes and crematories pulled in eleven
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: point nine five billion dollars, and one of the ways
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: they pulled in that much was from cost casket sales.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't know if we even should say
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: this out loud, because it sounds like an unfounded accusation
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: that cheap coffins are purposely made ugly so they can upsell. Yeah,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: do you think that's true? Ah, that's probably true.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Well, I know I've read that the funeral home industry
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: marks up caskets that they buy. They resell them for
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: up to five Yeah, more than they paid for them.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a business, and that's their product, you know
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: it is.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: It's a business in the the customers are in a
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: really really uh easily exploited place.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I don't know though, I just think
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: it is a business, and because it deals with death,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: it's very easy for someone to say, like, you're exploiting
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: these people or taking advantage of them when they're I
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: just don't think that's true. It's not.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: I think that you can't cast that net across the
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: entire industry.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: I think that that's that's sure. There's some shysters s,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: but they're also for everybody. Yeah, you know, bad apples, Josh. Well,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: you know, we have a lot of opulence here in
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: the United States. Some people get into that, but apparently
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: in Australia and Great Britain they're a little more reserved
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: with what they'll spend on a casket. In some cultures,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: like the Jewish faith, it's very common to to not
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: have any sort of garish thing. They want you to
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: be buried in something very plain, so you're not distinguished
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: as to your place in life, you know.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently they'll even the hardware that they used to
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: carry now is removable, so like.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: When you're buried, you're buried in a plane box.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that, that's yeah, that's cool. You want
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: to talk about the bow people.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: The hanging coffins of the bow not to.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Be confused with the Hell of the upside down centers
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: in Big Trouble in Little China, right, although this is
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: in Sechuan Province of China.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: The Bo people are an ethnic group that populated the area,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: and they have this really neat tradition of putting the
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: coffins of their deceased up on like three hundred foot cliffs. Yeah,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: just craigs, little caves, and for centuries, no one has
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: had any idea how they got them up there.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, at one point they head close to three hundred
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Now it's only about one hundred and three hundred and
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: fifty to four hundred feet. And you've seen did you
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: see pictures? Yeah, it's crazy. I mean they're like, I
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: don't see how they did it. They think now they
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: might have lowered them down, but they still you know
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: that they're on it looks like they're on wood planks
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: that are sticking out of the cliffs. So how they
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: do that, Yeah, I can't figure it out. It's pretty neat.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: It's like a little village of coffins is kind of
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: clustered on this cliff side.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, with the idea that having your relatives higher up
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: is a place of greater respect to be looking up
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: at them, because that's where the deities were, at the
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: tops of mountains, and that would place them closer to
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: the deities.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, you go up here now, yeah, because you're dead.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very interesting.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: What about the Egyptians, They had the money coffins if
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: you ask me.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we covered this with Tutt obviously, the big
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: sarcopha guy. But they didn't they believe that you would
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: just be sent to your you know, all this stuff
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: would go with you.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you needed in your afterlife for your journey to
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: the after world, the underworld, and I guess the whole
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: it was the opposite of what the Jews think.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: The more socioeconomic status you can bestow upon a grave,
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: the better off the person is going to be in
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: the next life. Oh, you have a bejeweled casket, right,
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: you're you're in our You're okay, in our book.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: But dazzled. Yeah.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: But they actually had texts. What we know called the
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Egyptian Book of the Dead was originally called the It
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: grew out of what are called the Egyptian Coffin texts,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: and there were two the Book of the Dead, the
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Coffin Text that became the Book of the Dead was
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: for everybody, regardless of your socioeconomic status, and it told
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: you how to be buried. And we've done how mummies work,
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: so we got into that a lot. Yeah, and that's
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: basically what we relied on. But there was also one
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: for the Pharaohs, the kings, the elite, and those are
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: the pyramid.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Texts, yes, and that's the one that later evolved to
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: the Book of the Dead, right, the Pyramid text. I
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: think the Coffin texts, I don't know. Hey, yeah's a
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: pyramid text.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Pyramid text is separate. That's the one for
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: the for the elite.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Right, and that's what evolved to the Book of the Dead.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Oh it did, okay, Yeah, but I think what was
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: in the Coffin Text was contained within the Pyramid text, right.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the Coffin Text was an umbrella, right,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: that gave birth to both. It was the original one
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: and it actually had the first described cosmology ever recorded.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Yes, the Book of Two A's within the Egyptian Coffin
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Text was the first time they basically said here's what
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: happens to you after death? Yeah, pretty cool. Could happen
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: to you.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: And it's basically you you cross from one part of
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: the sky into a lake of fire and then across
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: into another part of this s guy.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And the coffin texts have spells and things to
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: help you out as well in your journey.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Like check out my bejeweled casket. I'm okay in your book, O, Chuck.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: We couldn't talk about coffins if we didn't talk about
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: a really interesting and neat trend of the eighteenth and
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: nineteenth century, maybe even seventeenth, but I think eighteenth and
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: nineteenth century called safety coffins.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It's a common fear for people to
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: it's called the tapaphobia taphophobia, and that's the fear of
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: being buried alive. Yeah, and that it's a real thing,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: and people had it then and they have it now.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Well, they had good reason to have it back then,
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: because it happened.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: There was a book called Premature Burial and How It
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: May Be Prevented. It's an eighteen ninety six book by
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: a social reformer named William Tebb and a couple of
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: co authors. Actually, one of the co authors was a
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: doctor who himself had been prematurely buried.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Oh really.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they went over like account after account, and they
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: even had a chapter called Dubious Accounts. But they basically
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: came up with two hundred and nineteen instances of narrow
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: escape from premature burial, one hundred and forty nine cases
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: of actual premature burial, ten cases of vivisection before death.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: So the person they thought was dead they started to
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: cut open and they weren't dead.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then then six feet under club.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: And then two cases of embalming before death. Wow, so
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: like it happened before embalming. It was like there was
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: no way to tell you were dead.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess that was the problem. Is
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: medical science had advanced to the point where you could
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: always tell if someone was dead.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and there was such thing as cholera, which apparently
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: gives you the appearance of being dead even when you're not,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: So there was good reason to fear being buried alive.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: And as a resultless thing called the safety coffin came up.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and there were I'm sure you've done some other
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: research on this. They were all different sorts of methods
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: that they had from a vault that had like a
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: little window and a wheel you could turn on the
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: inside to let yourself out, which would be nice. Sometimes
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: it was just a breathing tube.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the one that was patented in eighteen ninety six
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: by a guy named Count Carnice Carniki, which is awesome.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: He had something that was there was a tube with
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: a spring going all the way the six feet down
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: and there was a little glass ball at the end
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: of the tube and it rested on the deceased chest
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: and if any movement of the chest happened, like you
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: took one breath anything like that, it would trip the
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: spring and this passageway would fly open to let air
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: in and a flag would rise up above your grade
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: they were still alive. So that one was one of
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: the most well known safety coffins and actually in premature
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: burial and how it may be prevented. There's a whole
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: little chapter dedicated to it, and actually you can find
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: the full text of that online really for free. It's
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: really interesting.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: There were also things that would trigger like a bell ringing.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: One that even had a long fused firecracker that I
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: guess you could set off.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that'll get the attention to somebody.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: I guess.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: So in that book, Teb and his friends they endorse
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: to prevent premature burial, either safety coffin or cremation, whether
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: like even if you are dead then or even if
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: you're not dead, you're gonna be dead afterward.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: So we guarantee you won't be buried alive exactly because
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: you'll be creamy. We're not even going to bury the
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: ultimate safety coffin.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: And there's this guy named doctor Timothy Clark Smith in
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: eighteen ninety three. He died in Middlebury, Vermont, and he's
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: buried to this day, which is customary in Evergreen Cemetery.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: And if you go to his burial mound, there's a
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: fourteen by fourteen inch of plate glass opens up onto
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: what was once his face six feet down. Wow, so
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: that people could come check on him and make sure
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: he was dead because he had tatophobia and was very
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: very much afraid of that fate.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: That's got to be tied to claustrophobia somehow.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, they think the APA being they think that
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: you've had some sort of early childhood encounter with an
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: enclosed space yea, and either you developed tafophobia or you
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: become the batman.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's their that's their judgment that you know what
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: that sounds like. That sounds like a casket. Fact, let's
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: hear it, ah man, that sweetenectar.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Let's see what else. I got a couple more things.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: You got anything else? I got nothing else?
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: So you can We said that the average kufsmin is
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: like twenty two twenty three hundred dollars. You can also
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: shell out thirty thousand dollars, of course you can. Batesville
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Casket Company makes the Promethean and it is the coffin
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: that Michael Jackson and James Brown were buried in separately.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: They had their own coffins.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, what's the deal was it? Just like?
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: It is nice looking, rich, luxurious like navy velvet interior
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: lining this it looks it must be gold but polished
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: to this high shine. It's a beautiful casket. I have
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: to say. There is no reason in the world for
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: anyone ever to be buried in a casket like this.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: But it's out there right. If you want to go
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: the other way, you can go to di i y
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: coffin dot com and there are schematics to build your
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: own very plain coffin.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: I saw that, I thought about that might be a
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: nice thing to.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: Do, build your own coffin that King of the Hill.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: There's a King of the where Hank builds his own coffin.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: He's talking about how he started. He's like, well, I
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: looked into it and long story short.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: I got the bug. Now he's made. He made, he made.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: His first try was terrible, so he gave that to Peggy.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: And then his second try it's really nice. He's gotten
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: it down pat and he Peggy gets the one where
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: like the top doesn't close all the.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Way right, That's what mine would look like.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: It's a good episode.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I'm not a skilled craftsman, but I enjoy it. Yeah.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: And then lastly, you mean, I saw Mike Tyson do
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: his little his little spoken word thing, but we saw
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: him d C. It was great, and he talked about
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: it was really sweet because I'm really ambivalent about him,
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: because you know, it's just he's a really there's a lot.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: To him, you know what I'm saying.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Sure, And but one of the things that he said
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: he did was his mother was buried in a potter's
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: field with an unmarked grave and like a just a
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: cheap box. Yeah, and he said the first time he
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: made money, he had her exhumed and bought like the
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: most expensive headstone and the most expensive casket he could find,
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: and had her buried in like this other night cemetery.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: It's sweet. Yeah. You know there's a pauper's grave over
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: by the drive in movie theater here in Atlanta. Yeah,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: is that right? Yeah, it's just yeah, it's a pauper's
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: grave and lots of like bad stuff goes on there
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: now apparently what oh like prostitution and stuff like that.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: It's way worse dragging. Yeah, I'm sure some teens are drinking.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: That's probably not a good safe place to do that.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: No, I wouldn't think so. Yeah.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: And there's also Potter's Field pauper's grave in Oakland Cemetery.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's basically like a big expanse of grass. Yeah,
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: a bunch of people who were poor were bearing.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I did Mount Vernon when I was up there,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: you know George Washington's place. Is it cool? Yeah, it's
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: really neat because they still do stuff the old fashioned way.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: You know, like if they need a room painted, they
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: grind up dye and mix it with water and that stuff. Wow.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: But you know there is like you know, he and
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Martha are buried in this like beautiful mausoleum, and then
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: there's also like the slave you know, grave sites, and
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: it's just, you know, definitely like he freed all his
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: slaves and his will, which was a good thing to do,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: I guess. But anytime you go to one of those
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: plantation type things and you see like the opulence of
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: his thing and then this other little side area where
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: the slaves are buried, it's just sort of like, yeah, yeah,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: all that happened. That's a sad reminder, it is. And
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: no one was visiting like the slave area as much even,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: and I was just sort of like that kind of
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: rubbed me a little bit.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Did you go over there and visit it?
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely good for you. Yeah. Nice. So you got
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: anything else? I got nothing else.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: That's coffins.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: That's coffins. I was going to write this article a
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: couple of years ago because it didn't exist, because I
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: wanted to do this.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Oh good, I'm glad it came along.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: I think that's just a lesson kids. If you wait
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: around long enough, somebody else might do well.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: Then, since Chuck gave wait, I think Chuck, that might
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: be a casket backed.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: What is that the last casket back? All right?
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, well since we had our last casket fact. Oh yeah,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: I gotta say. If you want to read this article
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: on coffins, you can go to HowStuffWorks dot com and
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: you can type in that word c F F I
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: N in the search bar, and that means it's time
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: now for listener mail.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Josh, I'm gonna call this very manipulative email from a
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Georgia tech fan. Here we go, Peter in Virginia, he
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: knows it's coming. I want to tell you, guys how
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: your podcast made a difference in my life. I recently
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: found out that I have diffuse large B cell lymphoma.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: As a part of the testing process to determine what
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: stage you are, they shoot you full of barium and
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: then perform a CT scan. The cancer cells divide rapidly,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: so based on how much the barium glows during the CT,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: we'll tell them how much your cancer has spread. As
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: part of the process, you have to remain still as
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: possible for an hour prior to the CT, so as
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: little circulation in the blood and barium as possible. Then
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: you sit for another hour, also as still as possible,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: while getting the body scanned. Needless to say, you feel
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: very woozy after the barium, and it's very anxious time.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Your mind wants to wander into numerous worst case scenarios
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: while you were alone in a cold, dark room. However,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: I was overjoyed when the nurses said I could listen
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: to my MP three player. I am glad you replaced that.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: I spent both of those hours listening to your podcast. Actually,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: I even got one of the nurses to tape my
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: phone next to my head during the scanning process to
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: ensure I would hear. It provided a great distraction and
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: really took my mind off what certainly would have been
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: very gruesome two hours. Also, the doctor said that beating
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: cancer certainly is partly mental, and the attitude and response
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: from the treatment have a large part to do with
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: your response. And I'm a graduate from Georgia Tech, and
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: if I could hear a go jackets in the air
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: seriously make my week and increase my odds of survival.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I know you both went to Uga. However,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: I'm hopeful that we can put a side our differences
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: and come together to rally behind something like cancer. And
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: I emailed Peter back and said, you're very manipulative human beings. Yeah,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: and he laughed and thought that was really funny and
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: gave me and you a go dogs in the email.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, and he thought that might be the like
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: a carbon offset. Okay, So Peter, obviously, go jackets. Buzz
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: buzz buzz, Go jackets. Go Jamblenreck from Georgia Tech, et cetera.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: And that's where it ends, my friend. Yeah, and we
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: wish you all the best obviously in your treatment and
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: let us know how it's going. We'll be thinking about you.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Peter.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: Hang in there, buddy, good luck, and keep us posted.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: And we're never going to say go jackets again.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: That's right. That's your one shot, yep.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: If you wanted to try to manipulate me and chuck
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: into doing something we don't want to, you can give
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: it a shot. You can tweet to us at s
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: y SK podcast That was a why by the way,
• 41:00
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• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Should Know and you can join us at our home
• 41:04
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• 41:10
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• 41:13
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