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What's the deal with headstones? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should Know from House Stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: There's Charles Seby, Chuck Bryant, sons out. Jerry's over there.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: It's the end of July. There's a son out. Can
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: you tell him this tone? I can see I have
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: a window. I can look out behind you over your shoulder.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: You must I mean this. I can't imagine you're not depressed,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: just staring at foam. Yeah. When I look behind me,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: it's like, jeez, but you're the light. Thanks. That just
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: makes everything. Okay. That's so nice of you. You're making
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: me blessed. I know. So how are you doing? Oh
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I'm sleepy? Okay, well, well let's get this over with.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: So sucking. Let good ticking naps and I guess we
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: have those like Japanese style nap rooms here. We're very forward. Thing.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: That would be wonderful House the Works. Yeah. I don't
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: think i'd be able to do that at work take
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: a nap, no, no way, No, I don't think I
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: would be able to either. But I would think it'd
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: be wonderful just because it would show how progressive how
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Stuff Works is. We should have nap um cubbies that
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: are like plexi, so you can just watch people nap.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: How uncomfortable would that be? Or yeah, it would be
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: very uncomfortable. There's probably one or two weirdos here that
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: would love to do that. Yeah. Jonathan Strickland sucks is
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: thumb not a surprise. Um? Yeah, this was cobbled together,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: this one, which is unusual. Yeah. Where where did you
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: get some of the information? One was the International Southern
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Cemetery Gravestones Association, and the other was the U S
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Department of Veterans Affairs, definitive sources. You know all about
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: headstones and grave markers and tombstones yea by any name. Yeah.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I think the professionals who make headstones or grave markers
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: or tombstones call them funeral markers, are grave markers. That's
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: the lingo of the jargon of the industry. Yes, and
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: this pairs nicely with our Coffins podcast. Dude, it pairs
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: nicely with a bunch of them. This is part of
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: the Dying Suite. Will never end until we die. Here
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: lies Josh and Chuck the death Swite. Um, So, Chuck,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: you want to talk a little bit about the history
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: of this stuff. I've got a little bit of history.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you have or not about how
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: long humans have been burying the dead. Let's hear it,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: it's pretty old. As a matter of fact, there's evidence
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: of like weird funeral rights kind of at least an
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: assemblage of people acting differently, or an assemblage of primates
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: acting differently, um around a recently deceased member of their
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: group in bunabo um apes. So they'd like to poke
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: it and think it's not moving. Um. I don't think
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: they were poking it, but the way that they were
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: interacting with one another, like those with the highest rank
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: had the most access to the body. Um, they were
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: kind of guarding it from being disturbed. Uh, like early
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: signs of respect. Interesting and apparently Neanderthals as well, UM
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: used to as as as far back as two fifty
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: years ago. There's evidence that parts of the dead Neanderthals
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: were put away from the rest of the group in
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: what you could consider like a resting place like a
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: cave or something like that. I wonder if that started
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: because of just obvious things like smell and rotting bodies,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: or if it was just or maybe both. Well, I mean,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: we're hard wired for disgust to experience disgust, and disgust
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: warrns is like, don't eat that poop unless it's a
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: fecal transplant. Um, don't eat that vomit under any circumstances.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff that you shouldn't do, like
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: don't don't um eat that dead body. It's turned Um,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: it's not a nice fresh dead body. So I would
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: guess that funeral rites grew out of the our sense
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: of disgust. Like you're saying, um, the that's just kind
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: of ambiguous stuff. Though the Neanderthals like they they de
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: fleshed bones and then place the bones in separate places.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Some people are like, well, it's evidence of cannibalism. Other
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: people are saying, that's a funerary practice. The unambiguous evidence
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: of burials comes I think about eighty thousand years ago,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: between forty thousand and eighty thousand years ago in Egypt,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: child was buried um next to a cobble pit. What's that?
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: It's where you like, you excavate stone to like pave
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: roads or something with although forty tho years ago they
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: weren't making roads. I'm not sure what a cobble pit
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: is nothing to do with it's an excavation pit. Um.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I guess that they were excavating stones to make tools.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I would guess rather them roade. But there was a
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: child buried by anatomically modern humans between forty thousand and
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: eighty thousand years ago, so we've been doing it for
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: a very long time. Yeah, but this is just burial. Right. Well,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: we're talking about our headstones and they didn't come along
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: until far after that, right. Uh, Well, there weren't well
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: let's go back and them further to Roman and Celtic times. Uh,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: they had headstones that there were kind of it seems
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: like they were pretty advanced for the time. And then
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: there was a period where they weren't so um detailed,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: but early on they were super detailed. They would have pictures.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: They would describe things that happened, these battles that took place.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: If they died in battle and uh, Salmon's in Scotland,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: they would describe the profession maybe uh if sometimes it
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: was pictorial, like if someone was a carpenter, they wouldn't
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: say here lies a carpenter. They would just have a
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: hammer maybe, um, like a saw. Yeah, that's a that
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: giveaway that it was a carpenter. Uh. Scotland was very descriptive.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Apparently in their early days of headstones too, they would
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: describe professions. So like early on it seems just like
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the profession was a big deal, right, like this is
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: what they did here on earth. And in other cultures too,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: there was this idea that you could erect a memorial
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: to somebody by placing a stone or something, an upright stone,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: not necessarily at their grave, but like there's things called
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: stella um that are basically just markers that say like
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: this person did this um, or this person fought this
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: battle in one or lost, or this person was great
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  Speaker 1: for some reason that makes us want to memorialize it
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: by carving this into a stone and placing it upright
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: and never said this person didn't do so much. Not really,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: that came later in the twentieth century. But the idea
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: of stones period was before gravestones even. I think the
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: term headstone from what I gathered, is from the Jewish
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: custom of marking graves with stones and then um. I
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: think the other cultures did that too, like uh, supposedly
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: to keep the dead from rising, they would I thought
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: that was cool. But I've also heard and I think
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: it makes sense that they didn't want the bodies to
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: be disturbed by, you know, packs of wild coyotes. Yeah,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: so to combat that, and if you were lazy and
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: didn't feel like burying, or you lived in a place
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: where the dirt was just too hard, you could make
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: something called a cairn or carn. Yes, c A I
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: r n and right, yeah, I'm not sure I was pronounced,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: which is basically like you lay the body on the ground,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: maybe you dig out a little bit of a shallow pit,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: and then you place rocks around and on top of
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: it so that no, not even like the hungriest coyote
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  Speaker 1: is not going to be able to get through this
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: pile of rubble. And then you may also erect like
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: a marker at the head of it. Sure, and these
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: I think at this point pre nineteenth century, I don't
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: even think there were cemeteries. It was just you would
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: be buried near your family plot, near your home with
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: your family. Um, but they weren't all gathered together a
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: bunch of dead people in one area. Uh well, it
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: was the whole family, was there, Yeah, but not like
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  Speaker 1: a cemetery. And then depending um, on where how how
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: many people lived in a village, say, eventually that morphed
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: into a churchyard. The graveyard was moved to the church
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  Speaker 1: because the church was so intertwined in people's everyday lives
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  Speaker 1: that it just made sense that that's where you would
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  Speaker 1: go to be buried. The thing is these were almost um,
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  Speaker 1: purposefully gloomy places. They were um reminders. Yeah, it was
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: a reminder that you're gonna die a memnto maori. The
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: churchyard itself was a reminder that you're gonna die. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And they were not landscaped. They were usually they had
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: a fence around him maybe, and there were the markers,
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  Speaker 1: but that was about it. It wasn't meant to be
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: a place of solace or peace or meditation. Yeah, there's
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: one over in my neighborhood. There's a churchyard. Uh cemetery,
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  Speaker 1: and it is it feels a little different than just
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  Speaker 1: your average cemetery. It is, it looks a little different,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: and it's does seem a little like I don't know. Well,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: the reason why is because you and I are used
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: to what's called the Rural Cemetery Movement, the the RCM. Right,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: you know, you have that T shirt but that that
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: was that came out of the nineteenth century. The I
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: think um the early mid nineteenth century where this idea.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: As cities built up and people became further and further
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: removed from nature, and you also had less and less
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  Speaker 1: space to just bury somebody in a churchyard, they started
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  Speaker 1: moving the dead slightly to the outskirts of the city
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: and also put some thought into landscaping the area as well.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: So what you have is what you and I think
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: of as a modern cemetery, very park like, nice shrubbery
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: um paved roads that that allow people to go through
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: a nice place for visitors. So much so that very
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: early on in the rural cemetery movement, for a while
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: families would go picnic there on Sundays. It was like
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: a park, but you also plant you're dead there too.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: It was a little bit of both, but it and
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: also during this time that's not very surprising because during
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: this time death was so much more fully intricate, integrated
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: into the life of the average person that um having
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: a picnic there on a Sunday it didn't seem at
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: least bit bizarre. Macaw. Yeah, there weren't the hang ups
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: like we have these days. It seems like right, because
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: nowadays it's sterilized and removed. Death is Yeah. Back to
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: the headstones the Celts started using once Christianity came to Ireland,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: they started using the the Celtic cross, which was originally
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: the I think called the sun cross, which was a
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: pagan symbol. But then um, I think St Patrick and
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: put the Christian cross over the sun cross and we
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: now had our Celtic cross and they started using that
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: became kind of a common but again not um specific,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: just sort of like an unmarked grave still with the
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Celtic cross, no inscription, right right, Yeah, that didn't come
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: until later. But like you said, there was um, there
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: was a lot of symbology or symbols attached, and then
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: over time it evolved to include things like date of birth,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: date of death, the person's name, um, and then inscriptions
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: later on. Yeah, and thanks also to the Irish um.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: They were the first ones I believed to get a
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: little cheeky with their uh sense of humor um And
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but well they probably yeah. But one
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: example that in the article I read said I think
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: of me as you walk by where you now stay,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: and so once did I, which is you know for
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: the eighteenth century. That's that's a big time funny, right
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: because it rhymes yeah exactly. But again that's what's called
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: the memento More. It's like a reminder that you're gonna die,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: so don't get too big for your breeches or don't
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: forget to go live your life. There's all sorts of
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: reasons for that. Uh. And America and the colonies, um,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: colonial times, it wasn't super fancy um, and they used
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: they started to use things like limestone and marble instead
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: of wood, which would last longer in sandstone. But then
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: in the eighteen sixties they moved to igneous rock. Which
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: always want to say ignacious because of I always want
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: to say because Confederacy dunces. I think was it the
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: name of one of the characters. Yeah, the main guy,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Ignacious Riley was. It's igneous. What about saying ignacious who?
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know who was? If there was ever a
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: name for a saint, it's ignacious saying ignacious? But what
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: was he? The saint? I don't remember, just his name
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: always stood out to me like that is a saints name,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: patron saint of podcasting? All right, Um. In the six
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: so they started using the igneous rock, which is underground
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: cooled rock, and that was much more permanent because other
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: stuff crumbled and you know the sandstone. Yeah, let's talk
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: about weathering, shall we. Um And in colonial times too,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: when they were using these markers and headstones. Um. So,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: symbology has been a part of headstones for a very
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: long time, whether it was the Celtic cross or a
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: saw to indicate a carpenter or whatever. And in the colonies, apparently,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: um they like to remind everybody that only the most
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: pious select few we're going to go to heaven. The
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: rest of you are going to hell. Like, no bones
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: about it, buddy, you are going to hell. Sorry, And um,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: I would like to use my headstone to remind you
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: of it. So I'm gonna put a sculling crossbones on it,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the death's head. They carved the death head, the death's
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: head onto the gravestone to remind others that they were
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: going to hell. That's what the Puritans did. Yeah. The
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Victorians were fancy and always so they had really elaborate
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: headstones and tombs, and they were also big on like
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the really nice park atmosphere. Well that's what that's what
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: it grew out of, was the Victorian era. Yeah, and
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: you sent a link to about some what some of
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the Victorian symbols mean, right, Yeah, they had some there's
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: weren't quite as they weren't intended to be a reminder
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: that you're going to hell. They were a lot more
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: hopeful and a lot of these you still see on
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: tombstones today, headstones like modern ones and people who are
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: buried today, Like you'll see a bundle of wheat gathered together,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: and that's the indicate that somebody lived a nice, long
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: life and and they were harvested and they will go
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: on and into the next life. A gateway might be
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: nice because that means sure, that's the gateway to heaven. Yes,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: any kind of arch or gate Yeah, butterfly is the
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: symbol of resurrection. That's very nice. Um, if you have
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: a broken column, it indicates that you were cut down
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: in the prime of life, taken too young. Um. If
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: you have a flower that's broken, have you ever seen that?
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Uh No, it's like it's it's it'll be like a
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: rose or something and then it's like snapped into That
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: indicates that, um, you were you died suddenly and if
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: it's a bud, if it's not an open flower, it
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: indicates it was a child. So there's like all this code. Yeah,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: an hourglass is the transience of this life, right, or lamp,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: the light of truth. Clasped hands, you know where there's
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: like somebody holding somebody else's hand that means like take care,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I'll see you in a few years. Or the saddest
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe the willow tree. That's just morning and that's
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: just really sad. It is sad, but there's none of
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: these are reminders that you're going to You're gonna go
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: to hell when you die. It's gonna be bad. The
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Victorians were a little more uplifting. If anybody had their
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: finger on the pulse of death, it was the Victorians.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: They just knew what they were doing. Another thing human
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: beings did in the eighteenth century was more safe. These cages,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: iron cages they would put over um. But the Victorians
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: were like, no, that's really untoward. Well get rid of those.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Part of the reason why is because there wasn't that
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: need for it anymore. It was remember the cairns or
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: the carns me to stay carns. And it's probably wrong,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: but that was to protect from coyotes disturbing the grave.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: He also said Morls, yeahs and Kama Jacoma. Yeah, that's
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: what I said, Laura said Jacama. The more safe were
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: to protect the body from being dug up by people
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: who were robbing graves to sell the body to anatomists. Yeah,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: or I imagine, you know, maybe loot the body as well.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: On your way, like here's your body. Um, disregard where
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: that wedding gold wedding band was on the finger right?
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Remember Mr Burns has um the suit that Charlie Chaplin
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: was buried in in a shadow box on it. That's
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: a good one. Uh. And that kind of you know,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: brings us I guess, I mean that's skipping forward though.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: But the modern era, the last hundred years has been um,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I mean headstone. The headstone industry is a big deal.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: It's it's you know, people put a lot of thought
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: into what goes on their headstone or their family's headstone,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: and cost a lot of money. And you can be
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: as ornate as you want to, or you can do
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: like in Royal Tannin bombs and invent your own fake headstone,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: which is pretty good. You wanting to talk about some
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: of these ones. Yeah, some of these epitats. We have
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the slide show on stuff you Should Know dot Com
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: called the twenty one remark Coble Epitaphs, and it is
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: definitely worth checking out. Um, and this one's my favorite.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Chuck Charleskowski, Yeah, Fewkowski's don't try that on. Yeah, and
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: he has a little pugilist too. Yeah. Well, he was
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: a huge boxing fan. I think he might have been
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: a boxer himself. He died, yeah, crazy. Yeah, for some reason,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: I thought he was like in the eighties or something. No,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: he's still working in the eighties. Yeah. Boy, he didn't
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: look good there at the end. Well, he pretty much
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: drank him to death, I know, but he Yeah, he
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: looked really bad. I remember seeing a documentary I think
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: from the eighties or not early nineties. Is that the
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: one where he like kicks his wife off of the
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: couch or something. He's like being physically abusive in the documentary.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: He wasn't a nice fellow. No, he really wasn't. No,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: he's not at all. You saw bar Flat, right, That's
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: one of my all time favorite movies. I figured it's
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: a good one. Who's that one? Mitchell's Oh, it's just
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: a person. Yeah, these are just like no worthy. Well
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: this sucks that awesome, Yeah, that seems like something I
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: might do. Actually, well this sucks on your grace stone. Yeah,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: because this got me thinking of what I would want,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: you know, um, And I mean I didn't come up
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: with anything, but I think I would just want something
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: sort of like humble, like, you know, he tried his best,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: but you know, maybe he didn't do such a good
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: job all the time. Yet more, I wouldn't want to
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: like flout, like to out anything or trump up in
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: a life, you know, like he was a simple dude
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: who tried to not be such a jerk. How's that?
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: That's a good one. What about mel Blanks? Yeah, that's
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: all folks, that's a good one. Man. Of one thousand voices,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: that's very nice. Some of these are a little smallsey
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: and sweet. This one was good. Robert Klay Allison his tombstone.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: He died in seven at the age of forty seven.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: His epitaph says he never killed a man that did
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: not need killing. That's pretty good. That's a gun slinger
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: right there. Did you know that only like four or
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: five times in the history of the United States, where
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: was there an actual gunfight in the center of town. No,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: it sounds like a good don't be dumb. Oh yeah,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: make a mental note. I think it's verified like five
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: times or something. It's very much a movie thing. I
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: mean there were plenty of gun you know, people shooting
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: in gunfights, but but like the whole like, hi, yeah,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: come out in the middle of town and draw your
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: guns at the tick of the clock or whatever. You know.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Whaticed was a surprisingly good movie Three o'clock High. Did
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: you ever see that Richard Tyson and Casey Samasco. Yeah.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I saw that when it came out and thought, man,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: this is kind of a different movie. And then years
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: later it's sort of a cult favorite. Uh. That guy
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: what was his name in the movie The Bully but
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: his real name, No, his name in the movie, I
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: don't remember. It was like he had like a scary
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: first name or something, and he went on to a sale.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Arnold Schwartz and anger in Kindergarten Cop. I didn't see
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Kindergarten Cop. Really, Yeah, you should see it? All right,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: you want to do anymore? We should we just tell
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: everybody to go check these out. I think we should
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: just near let's see this one more raised four beautiful
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: daughters with only one bathroom, and still there was love.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: That's nice, It is nice. He wants to be morbid,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. I think there's something to
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: be said. You're just gonna be some morbids. Mine will
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: probably say boom, I'm coming to get you right and chuck.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: One more thing about um epitaphs and gravestones before we
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: move on. UM. There was this thing. Remember why two
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: K y two K bug I wasn't sold on that
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: to begin with, Well, there are a lot of potential problems.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: It wasn't just with computer programs. One of them was
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: the grave marker industry. A lot of people by their
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: headstones ahead of time, and they had nineteen and then
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: nothing after the date because they expected to die in
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the twentieth century. Well, a lot of people had to
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: have this filled in and re etched because they lived
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: into the two thousand's. There was a big problem, and
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: apparently a lot of long standing UM gravestone makers around
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: the sixties or seventies started really trying to persuade their
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: customers did not etch that in. A lot of people
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: didn't listen, some people did, some people didn't. Why would
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: you get that done ahead of time? I understand picking
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: out your plot and you're what you wanted to say,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: but the actual etching, like who cares? I guess these
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: people really didn't want their families that have to do
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: almost anything. I get that, like, just put nine nine
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: in there, like I'm alive, it's two thousand. I gotta
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: call that guy. Yeah exactly. I mean, what a what
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: a thing to have on your to do list. You
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: need to get my epithelf filled in and recarve, drink
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: ovaltee and get epithets carve um. All right, So we'll
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: move on here after this message break and talk a
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: little bit about military graves and government funded headstone Okay,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: so government furnished headstones and this is from the Veterans
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Affairs website. But I thought that's pretty interesting. They also
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: call them Obama stones. That was off the cup. That
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: was good originally. UM. I found it interesting that standard
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: grave markers were even before the national cemeteries were established
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty two, and they had, like you know,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: prior to the Civil War, they had all these frontier
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: armies and they would just bury you in uh, don't
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: bury me on the open prairie. Basically they would bury
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: you if you died in battle, not a mass grave
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: as in they would dump everyone in there, but um
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: a mass grave site. Yeah. Initially, like they would just
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: bury everyone together, or and they wouldn't even market yeah,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: or you were just buried in battle like where you
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: died if things were really tough, yeah, if yeah, if
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: you were lucky. I'm quite sure there are plenty of
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: soldiers who were not left on the frontier to basically
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: be picked off by vultures sky burial sky burials on
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: the on the American front here. Um, yeah, you're exactly right,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I'm sure. It wasn't until like the nineteenth century that
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: they started even marking these mask grades. It was like, oh,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: a bunch of soldiers died here, let's take a pit,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: fill it in and just forget about it. Then in
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: the mid nineteenth century, like the Crimean War, for example,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: they would raise a monument saying, there's a bunch of
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: guys buried here who fell in this battle. And it
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: wasn't until World War One that they started to really
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: try to individually bury men who fell in battle. Yeah. Initially,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: in the Civil War days, they would um used a
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: wooden board, UM, and it would have a registration number
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: and some sort of inscription. But they didn't keep any
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: kind of records of burials at that point. That came
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: along later as well. But once the Civil War happened
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: after the Battle of Manassas, they were like, a lot
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: of people are dying here. This is becoming a problem,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Like we need to find a way to respect these soldiers.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: And oh, the Quartermaster General Um from the General's Orders
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: in September eighteen sixty one was directed to finally start
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: keeping records and provide headboards headboards in blank forms to
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: all of the commanders around the country so they could
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: just keep track of everything at least, right, And this
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: is the first time that anybody ever made a coordinated
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: effort to track burials ever. Apparently. Yeah, and after the
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Civil War they made an effort for the first time
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: to relocate um people that were buried in battle and
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: have them relocated to an official grave. Yeah. After the
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Civil War. Oh yeah, because they had a bunch of
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Confederate dead that the Southern States reclaimed and moved down
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: south to bury so that they wouldn't have to be
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: buried in any Yankee earth. Yankee dirt. Uh. In eighteen
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: sixty five is when they started thinking, hey, these wooden
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: burial markers are not lasting very long. No, they were
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: expected to last about five years. They each cost at
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: the time a dollar twenty three, which is not cheap.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: And so when you suddenly multiplied that by the three
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand expected dead from the Civil War that you
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: had to bury and then maintain their their headboards every
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: five years, they suddenly were like, this is gonna go
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: well into a million dollars over the next twenty years.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Maybe we should come up with something a little more
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: permanent than popsicle sticks. It was the economics of it,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: and the public sentiments started growing to um to hey,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: maybe we should memorialize these soldiers in a more permanent way. Yeah,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: because a little wood thing that's rotting after a few
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: years is pretty kind of a disrespectful thing. And apparently
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: there was a huge and um vigorous debate over what
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: we should use as a headstone. Should we use like
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: something like marble, or should we use something like galvanized
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: iron coated in zinc, which I wasn't even familiar that
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: was the thing until today. Yeah, I've never heard of
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: it either. And I guess over the course of like
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: seven years there was a lot of debate and angry
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: words flying, and and um, I'm sure the marble industry
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: was like, yeah, yeah, Marble, and the galvanized iron industry
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: was like, you better get in there and get this passed.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: And then finally the marvel people won. Yeah. And in
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy three, Secretary of War William W. Bell nap
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Um said, you know what we're gonna design. These stones
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: are gonna be in national cemeteries, are going to be permanent,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: but they're only gonna be for the known dead at
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: this point. The unknown came about later as well. And
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: not only that this is just for Union soldiers. Yeah,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: that we're not providing for the Confederate soldiers was a
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: bit of a slap in the base. I believe they
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: reversed that position later on, and they did. And then
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: anybody who'd ever fallen in battle in the United States
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: got a marker, and they made different markers for the
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: unknown dead. They were basically just blocks of stone, and
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: then it had the grave the burial plot carved into
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: the top of it. And then eventually they said we're
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: gonna make all of them the same everybody gets the
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: same marker. Yeah, and they made it retroactive to and
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: started started including past wars, Revolutionary War, War of eighteen twelve,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Mexican War, and Indian campaigns, and then eventually the Spanish
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: American War. So a lot of thought went into it.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: I thought it was just kind of never really think
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: about that kind of thing. You just see like Arlington,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: and you don't think about all the behind the scenes
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: work and decisions that need to be made on exactly
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: how to do that. Yeah. And they even did a
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: study in nineteen two to find out how the the
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy nine markers were holding up, and they said,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: we need to change these a little bit. So if
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: anyone ever asks you what the official military um headstone
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: in the US dimensions are, this would be the most
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: arcane piece of trivia anyone would asked. It's pretty arcane,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: but you could probably impress some weird uncle or your
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: grandpa or something like that with this one. Uh. The
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: height of the stone is thirty nine inches tall, twelve
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: inches wide, and the thickness is four inches and apparently
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: the height extends twelve inches above the ground, so you
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: have twenty seven inches Bury below the ground. You've been
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: to Darlington, m hm, it's pretty neat. It is really something.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: You go to Oakland Cemetery here in Atlanta, Yep, I've
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: been there too. Yeah, it's pretty nice. It is really something. Yeah.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: And they Oakland even has and I've always felt I
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: don't think I have death hang ups, but they have
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: like concerts there and stuff like that. Yeah. And I
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: think they show movies there, yeah, I think so. Like
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: in the outside, um, there's some really neat mausoleums. There's
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: like a miniature, uh, statue of Liberty. There's some really ornate,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: beautiful mausoleums. Bobby Jones, the famous golfer, is buried there,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: and there's a putting green on his graves. I've never
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: seen that one. Yeah, if you if you, there's usually
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: golf balls there. I think if you bring your own
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: putter you can just sit there and put on his grave. Interesting. Yeah,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: well I just recently saw Washington and Mrs Washington's grave
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: at Um up there in d C. Which was cool. Um,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: but they were moved as well. That one's really kind
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: of when you go there to Mount Vernon, you know
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: you see them Bury. Oh yeah, we saw that recently too. Yeah,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: you see, they were moved from their original one, but
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: the original tomb is still there and they made a
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: nicer one. And then there's the slave burial ground, which
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: is just a really kind of a sad place to
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: visit because it's not I mean, they've done something now,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: but um, I don't know, it's just sort of a reminder, yeah,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: of what went on, which, um, you know, speaking of
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: that Washington, it was like, you know, he's lauded for
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: freeing his slaves, but it was after he he freed
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: them after he died, and then in his will it
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: was after Martha Washington was to die. Um, then they
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: would be officially freed. And you know that's that's great. Whatever,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: he still held slaves until he died. At least Martha
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Washington did something remarkable though. Um. She gave the slaves
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: that she inherited from her husband their freedom within a
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: year of his death. She didn't wait until she died.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: She was like, you guys, be free, and I mean
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: in Washington's favor for sure. He also provided a substantial
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: amounts of money for their for them to just start
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: a new free life. It wasn't just like your free
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: good luck. It was you guys are free, like, here's
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: here's a new life for you. Did you go recently? Yeah? Yeah,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: pretty neat it is. It's like really well done. I
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: guess Living Museum. Yeah. I went last year with just
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: my sister and then went again. Actually, you and I
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: probably went within the last like a few weeks of
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: each other. It's funny, yeah, because I went with my
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: niece and Emily and um highly recommend going to melt Burnon.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: It's and Monicello too. I still haven't been there. That's amazing.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Both of them are just really great spots to go
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: check out. It's pretty cool. I mean you can stand
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: there and look at the bed where he died. Yeah,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: it's you're like five ft from it. Yeah. I try
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: to get in and lay down, and they did. I
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: got some. I got smacked on the wrist. Um. All right,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: after this break, we're going to talk a little bit
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: about unmarked graves. Chuck. Yeah, I am interested in learning
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: the definition of an armarked grave, as per say someone
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: named Joe len uh, Well, it means it's a great
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: that's not march right. Pretty much, it's almost exactly what
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: you think it is. Is if somebody is buried in
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: a grave. And this is according from this article from
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. According to um Joelene Mason, who's the
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: general manager of Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park, which
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: is where a lot of celebrities are buried in Los Angeles,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: it's really one of the most useless quotes I've ever seen.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: She says, quote, if there's no marker, headstone, or nameplate
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: and there's someone in the grave, it qualifies as unmarked.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: She was probably like, yeah, she hung up, just shaking
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: her head. Uh, there are many reasons. There's a lot
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: of reasons why you might want your grave unmarked. Um man,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: that was so caddy of us. Just then to make
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: fun of that lady, well, to make fun of the quote,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: the whole thing. Yeah, that's sorry. Sorry everyone. I didn't
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: think it was that caddy. I was moved to say something, right, Um,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Like I said, there's a lot of reasons you might want,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: uh or not want. There's all the reasons you might
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: have an unmarked grave. Historically, you might have an unmarked
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: grave if you are a really bad person. Um like Himmler.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Oh his grave isn't mark That makes sense, Yeah, pretty
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: bad persons, bad person, good example of a bad person. Hey, thanks,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: you're welcome. Um executed criminals a lot of times have
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: unmarked graves a lot of times the show like you know,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: contempt for what they did on Earth, but a lot
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: of times too. It's also so it doesn't draw people
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: there to you know, go do bad things to face
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: the grave in any way, um, family victims or whatever.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: It's also if families. If you die of pauper, you
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: will be buried in what's called the potter's field. And
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: Oakland Cemetery has a potter's field. Yeah, like one next
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: to the theater to the drive in theater. Is there
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: a potter's field there? Oh yeah, I know that right
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: next to it. But basically it's just a plot of
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: unmarked graves and the state still does that. Yeah. The
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: one next to uh starlight drive in is um, like
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of bad stuff goes on over there. Apparently
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: it's like prostitution and drugs and yeah, um, what else
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: could you do? You could scatter the remains of a
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: bad person and not even have a grave at all.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: And that's what some of the Nazi war criminals that
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: was their fate. Like I commend and Guring were just
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: scattered and like, so no one would know where they were.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: You know, it wasn't around then, but today it would
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: seem like if you came up against the Nazis again,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: the best way to dispose of their body would be
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: something we mentioned in our episode, what are different ways
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: to dispose of a body? And remember the auto licens
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: one where you turned into a biscus goo that can
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: be poured down the drain. That's what you should do
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: with Nazis these days. Put it in the toilet and
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: flush it. Yes, yes, heads up Nazis. Yeah, but in
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: some cities don't they treat waste water for eventual drinking
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: water That the process of auto licens renders it um sterile,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: So you can just pour it down the drain. But
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: would you want to drink it? Tho? I can't imagine
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: the molecules that we drink, the things that we drink
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: what they used to be. Yeah, that's still make it
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: into our body on a molecular level. I'm sure it
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: would be revolting to know. As a matter of fact,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: if anybody out there does know, if you work in
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: like wastewater treatment or something, share some stories. Yeah, that'd
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: be a good podcast. I don't know if I want
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: to know. Do you remember the story of that poor
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: girl in Los Angeles who um went missing? She was
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: on a trip there by herself for a few days
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: from Canada in the last couple of years. Oh, the
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: one in the tank. Yeah. They found her in the
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: drinking and the hotel water tank on the roof after
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: like I think a week or two. Yeah, because people
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: said the water tasted funny, yeah, and looked funny. Yeah.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: She was the one that did the strange stuff with
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: the elevator, right, Yes, yeah, she was. She was mentally ill.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: That was really sad. Wasn't mental illness or was she
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: on drugs? I don't believe she had a history of
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: mental illness. Did Yeah she did? Oh she did. Yeah.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: It is sad. I mean it's sad either way. Yeah,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: But at first it's like, oh my gosh, it's the
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: creepiest thing I've ever seen, because her behavior was so weird. Yeah.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: If you look on line, there's a lot of sixteen
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: year olds, they're like stoof that she was possessed by
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: a demon, and they actually mean it, chuck, they mean it.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Come on, sixteen year olds, get tracked together all right,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: And now to close, we're gonna go over some famous
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: people with unmarked graves, because sometimes if you're famous, your
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: family might want to unmark graves so your grave site
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: doesn't become a tourist stop. Um, that's one reason, I guess,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: because you've ever been to like, No, I haven't, but
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: I've seen pictures. Yeah. I went, of course, because I
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: was just out of college, way into the doors, and
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: you didn't. No, I went and looked at it. You
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: don't like the doors anymore, there, do you it? Um?
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: It was a passing fancy, but I don't like dislike
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: the doors. But I was like really into him for
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: a while, and then I now I'm coming to Morrison
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: was not much of a poet. I bought his poetry
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: books back then, and I was all into the Lizard King.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: I think it's something that happens when you're twenty. Yeah,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: what's good music. I still like him. Um. I was
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: into Pink Floyd for a while too, but I don't
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: listen to them much anymore. They have a new album
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: coming out, from what I understand, Yeah, I did hear
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: that old material that they've is gonna be awesome. Yeah,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: I still love Pink Floyd, but not like I did
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: when I was fourteen. Yeah, alright, Mozart, he's in an
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: unmarked to him. Um, because even though we see him
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: as a big shot, he at the time was not
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: in the upper Echelona society. No, you had to be
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: pretty high falutin in the eighteenth century in Vienna to
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: get a grave marker. Yeah, so he's buried. They now
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: have an In the eighteen fifties, they built a monument
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: over where they think he was buried. Um. And then
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: that was later moved to a space where they just
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: had honored various musicians that were buried there. And they
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: put up another monument near his original assumed or prison
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: grave site at Marks Cemetery St. Mark's m r x UM.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: And it has an angel leaning up against the broken column, which,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: as you remember, indicates someone who has cut down the
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: prime of life. And Mozart died at age thirty five
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: suddenly of rheumatic fever. The vapors he had the vapors,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: So that that's what I call the Enna's nice ever
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: been there? Uh? No, lovely? Uh it is John Wayne.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: He is buried in his family gives his reason for
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: his unmarked grave for just not wanting to be uh,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: disrespectful to others that are also buried there, which I
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: think is a pretty nice thing. That's kind of a
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say a trend, but a lot
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: of celebrities families do that they they're buried in unmarked
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: graves either because they have the same thought that you have,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Like you want to be humble. You can't be much
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: more humble than being buried in an mark grave. Yeah,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: I want to be marked at least, so like George C. Scott,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Frank Zappa, they're both buried in on Mark graves. Roy Orbison.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Roy Orbison is um because apparently his family never got
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: around to putting a headstone on his grave. They were
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: planning on moving him and never have, so he's been
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: laying in on Mark Graves since Yah Bessie Smith famous
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: blue singer. She was big in the vaudeville scene in
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties and like a lot of the siren
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: singers of the day, I had a problem with alcoholism
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: and died in a car crash in ninety seven. And
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: she didn't have a grave because her husband apparently the
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: rumors didn't want to pay for it, and years later
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Janice Joplin was such a fan she had moved to
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: pay for and commission a headstone for her um and
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: I didn't see if it was ever done. It says
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: she died shortly thereafter, but I don't know if that
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: project was ever completed. It was okay, it went through
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: all right. Mike Tyson did that too. His mother was
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: died very poor and I think had an unmarked grave
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: or a very small marker. And after he hit it big,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: one of the first things he did was get this huge, gaudy,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: elaborate headstone erected for Belushi has been uh. They've had
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: some problems with fans of Belushi's partying at his grave,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: so they moved him from his UH grave and Martha's
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: vineyard to a spot that only the family knows. But
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: they have two uh cinotaphs, which are empty tombs, one
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: at Martha's vineyard, one at his family plot in Chicago
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: where you can go visit, but apparently only like his
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: family knows where he's truly buried. Now. Um, and you know,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: I hung out in the room where he died a
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: couple of times. Yeah, and the in the Belushi Cabana
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: at the Chateau Marmott. Oh yeah, I always think he was.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: It was it was Chicago, but that was um Chris Farley,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: who died in exactly the same manner that Belushi did,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: just in Chicago. Yeah, it's a little weird. I mean
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: you're sitting there and you're you know, I was having
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: a good time and having a few drinks, and it's
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: like John Belushi died right here where I'm standing, and um, yeah,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: bad way to go. What speedball? And then chuck out?
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Got one more? Remember the movie Peter Pan, the Disney
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: movie The Cartoon. Yeah, a little boy who voices who
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: voiced Peter Pan. He is buried in an unmarked Popper's grave.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: That is sad. Yeah, he was in. His name is
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Bobby Driscoll. He was in not just Peter Pan, but
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: also um Treasure Island movie called The Window. And he
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: was a child star and after he hit puberty he
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: was apparently discarded by Hollywood and hit the skids and
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: he actually died. The guy who the kid who voiced
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Peter Pan died at age thirty one in an abandoned
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: apartment in New York City. Um, not even of a
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: drug overdose, but of a whole bunch of drug overdoses
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: that finally led to catastrophic heart failure. Um and his
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: mother started looking for him a year after he died
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: and found that he died because I guess the police
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: printed him. He was just a John Doe until his
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: mother started looking for him. But he's still buried in
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: an omark grave from what I understand. Yeah, and it's
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: not just like, oh, he was famous, and it's so
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: sad he died that way because thousands of people die
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: every day in this country, homeless people that died with
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: no family and no one that cares about burying them. Well,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: there's also a lot of people who have family, whose
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: family don't have enough money to do anything. And I
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: have no choice but to allow the state to handle
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: the funeral. And it is not an elaborate funeral. State
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: state run funerals are not elaborate, I'm sure. Unless it's
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: ahead of state, then there wizz bangs in salute. I
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: got nothing else, I don't either. Go to our website
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com and check out twenty
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: one remarkable epitaphs. It's pretty good, if I say so myself. Uh,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: you can um read the let's see what is it?
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Ten famous people buried in unmarked graves that articles on
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com? And since I said how
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, it's time for listener now. I'm
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: gonna call this branical illusion, okay. And this is something
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: that we hear about a lot, and UH as fans
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: of radio and podcasting myself. If you've never seen someone
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: that you've always heard, it's always jarring to see what
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: they look like. And some people still don't even want
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: to know what we look like, which you know, I get.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: I don't blame you, man, I've seen Kiris Doll before. Yeah,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: it's just fun to look at the NPR people like
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Lois writes, as I expected to be three years old,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: And Lois writes, this looks exactly like I would have
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: thought she did. She looked younger than I thought, Um,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: but not much. All right, Hey, guys, uh, Josh, Chuck
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: and Jerry and again Jerry spelt correctly. People are really
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: getting with it. Man. I've been an avid listener uh
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: to your podcasts and the sister podcasts since two thousand nine.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Never thought I'd have anything interesting enough to write in about.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: But it finally happened, and it was so perception altering,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: so randomly odd. I thought you should know. All these
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: years I had an inner podcast movie playing of YouTube
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: bantering going through my head. All was good. I could
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: see Chuck laughing, I could see Josh studiously explaining things,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: and I stayed in podcast land, never having ventured out
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: to see your shows or videos. Yet I would enjoyed
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: them in time as well. But what turned my world
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: upside down and seemed like a brainical illusion was that
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: I finally did see a video of the two of you,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: and Josh's voice was coming out of Chuck's face, and
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Chuck's voice had a beard on it. All this time
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: I had thought of each of you was the other person,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: and this is after he had already seen pictures, so
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: that must be really weird. Um, seeing those voices coming
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: on different faces has done my head in. I think
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: the culprit is how your pictures are situated on the
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: podcast immans, with Chuck on the left and Josh on
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: the right. But since Westerners read from left to right
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: and the show always starts with Josh and Chuck and
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: then Chuck, that's the order of my brain. Put you
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: in I now have to fight with my inner podcast
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: movie to correct which face the voices are coming from,
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: and it causes constant bewilderment. Uh, you guys sent me
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: to my dreamland every night with your friendly voices. Thanks
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: a lot. Perhaps I would just follow the advice of
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: one of those funny T shirts, I reject your reality
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: and substitute my own, because no matter how hard I try,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: I always see Josh with a beard and Chuck with
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: a buzz cut. You got it wrong, pal, and that
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: even though I did have a buzz cut recently. It's
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: from Avalon. Thanks a lot of Avalon. We appreciate you writing,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: and we do hear that a lot. So for everybody
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: who that's ever happened to. Um, I'm sorry, I guess,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: but not really, because there's something we could do about.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: It's your brain. You look like what we look like.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: If you want to share something from your brain with us,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: you can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email to
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Stuff Podcasts at how stuff Works dot com, and as always,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: check us out at our home on the web. Stuff
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: you Should Know dot com for more on this and
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it How Stuff Works dot
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: com