Not usually mistaken for a Clown Car.

Funniest Obit Ever?

As a selfish, hard-headed, practical policy I always found that the optimal way of dealing with trouble was to be as calm, clear-eyed and pragmatic as possible without kicking your principles to the curb. A little of the sweet, sweet Ruddy Kiplingus “If you can get good head while those around you are…something…something.”

Alright, so I forget how it goes! So fuck you! I mean it’s not like there’s some magical, global information system thingie where a busy man such as myself can just go and look shit up, so quit being such a nitpicker. The point being that keeping your shit wired tight when the planet itself seems to be spinning in opposition to your hopes and dreams turns out to be a pretty effective and sensible strategy..

So first, check your own philosophical pants to see if they’re ripped and your ass is hanging out. As Science and Tolerance Lovin’ Liberals we should ALWAYS be open to the possibility that some tool or other in our ethical or behavioral toolbox is rusted out or obsolete. Not dolting around, tacking hither and thither on every vagrant breeze in the name of being “open minded”, but sometime we all just get one wrong.

Second, remember that this ability is a great strength, which Our Adversaries actually think is a weakness, which is why we will always win over time. Superstitious, anti-Science dumbasses who have no negative feedback loop built into their ideology and pooh-pooh the very idea of error and course correction as unmanly or unChristian will always and inevitably Wile E. Coyote their ignorant, linear, egotistical selves right off the cliff, going’ like 60.

Third, stick to your guns, and don’t be afraid of the bad times. You’re not alone. You have millions of compatriots and frankly it doesn’t matter by what margin a referendum calling for the cessation of the motion of the ocean passes: the tide still comes in and goes out and does not give a fiddlefuck what the vote was. Democracy is the work of a lifetime, so don’t let the loss of one skirmish – however painful it might be – discourage you.

Fourth, keep your funny. Seriously, it’s important. Stay loose and smiling or you'll cramp-up on the first lap.

Do I always follow this sage advice?

Oh Hell no.

I’m just as tempted to dodge an unpleasant truth or buy a flattering, glittering lie as the next guy. We’re all sinners on this bus, and none of us get out of here alive. And I read the same news you do, and some mornings it’s hard to get any jaunt at all into my walk. These are some grim, playing-for-keeps cocksuckers running run this country now, and like slipping off a diet, it’s easy to slip into defeatism.

That’s fine. That’s expected. Have an extra slice of pie every now and then and don’t kick yourself for feeling “at sixes and sevens” sometimes, because it happens to everybody. Just don’t let it linger in your heart too long because you are not at the end of hope, you’re at the beginning.

You’re in on the ground floor of a whole, new thing.

Can’t you feel it?

And this is the article that reminded me of that.

It’s possibly the funniest damned obituary I’ve ever read.

Sure I’ve got troubles, but these people lost their mother, which puts my daily travails into pretty sharp perspective. They lost their mother, and they coped with that tragic news by facing it squarely, writing about it clearly and honestly, and not forgetting the funny that was obviously one of the greatest gifts their mother bequeathed them.

So smile, soldier. Not the vacuous, bovine grin of the lobotomized, but don't let youself go deaf to the things that make you happy. If you have to, go out of your way to find something to smile about: it’s not just good…it’s good for you.

(The death notice was reprinted in-toto in the Chicago Tribune under this headline, so here you go. )

Family's dark humor revealed in death notice.

The death notice

(As it appeared)

On June 3, 2005 at 10:45 p.m. in Memphis, Tenn., Dorothy Gibson Cully, 86, died peacefully, while in the loving care of her two favorite children, Barbara and David. All of her breath leaked out. The mother of four children, grandmother to 11, great-grandmother to nine, devoted wife for 56 years to the late Ralph Chester Cully and a true friend to many, Dot had been active as a volunteer in the Catholic Church and other community charities for much of the past 25 years.

She was born the second child of six in 1919 as Frances Dorothy Gibson, daughter to Kathleen Heard Gibson and Calvin Hooper Gibson, an inventor best known as the first person since the Middle Ages to calculate the arcane lead-to-gold formula. Unable to actually prove this complex theory scientifically, and frustrated by the cruel conspiracy of the so-called "scientific community" working against his efforts, he ultimately stuck his head in a heated gas oven with a golden delicious apple propped in his mouth. Miraculously, the apple was saved for the evening dessert. Calvin was not.

Native Marylanders and longtime Baltimore, Kent Island and Ocean City residents, Ralph and Dot later resided in Lakeland, Fla., and Virginia Beach, Va.. Several years after Ralph's death, Dot moved to Raleigh in 2001, where she lived with her son David.

At the time of her death, Dot was visiting her daughter Carol in Memphis. Carol and her husband, Ron, away from home attending a "very important conference" at a posh Florida resort, rushed home 10 days later after learning of the death. Dot's other children, dutifully at their mother's side helping with the normal last-minute arrangements -- hospice notification, funeral parlor notice, revising the will, etc. -- happily picked up the considerable slack of the absent former heiress.

Dot is warmly remembered as a generous, spiritually strong, resourceful, tolerant and smart woman, who was always ready to help and never judged others or their shortcomings. Dot always found time to knit sweaters, sew quilts and send written notes to the family children, all while working a full-time job, volunteering as Girl Scout leader and donating considerable time to local charities and the neighborhood Catholic Church.

Dot graduated from Eastern High School at 15, worked in Baltimore full time from 1934 to 1979, beginning as a factory worker at Cross & Blackwell and retiring after 30 years as property manager and controller for a Baltimore conglomerate, Housing Engineering Company, all while raising four children, two of who are fairly normal.

An Irishwoman proud of and curious about her heritage, she was a voracious reader of historical novels, particularly those about the glories and trials of Ireland. Dot also loved to travel, her favorite destination being Eire's auld sod, where she dreamed of the magic, mystery and legend of the Emerald Isle.

Dot Cully is survived by her sisters, Ginny Torrico in Virginia, Marian Lee in Florida and Eileen Adams in Baltimore; her brother, Russell Gibson of Fallston, Md.; her children, Barbara Frost of Ocean City, Md., Carol Meroney of Memphis, Tenn., David Cully of Raleigh, N.C. and Stephen Cully of Baltimore, Md. Contributions to the Wake County (N.C.) Hospice Services are welcomed. Opinions about the details of this obit are not, since Mom would have liked it this way.