Legacy Matters
Video tombstones via the book of joe, Robert Barrows has a patent pending for a weatherproofed, hollowed -out headstone to house a microchip and a flat-screen TV where the deceased can record messages before they die, to be played, presumably whenever a person walks through the cemetery with the right remote control.
If the person doesn't make his wishes known in advance, any one of his relatives could make the tape for the "video-enhanced grave markers", costing $4000 or more.
You know how much I believe that people should create a personal legacy archives with their life stories and thoughts to send into the future, but PLEASE no video tombstones. If I want to go to a cemetery, to reflect on the mysteries of life and death, I certainly don't want to see a whole lot of flat-screen TVs to attract a whole new sort of grave robbers.
Just the elevator pitch. Name, dates of birth and death, a well-chosen quotation or epitaph.
Now that spring has finally arrived I'm about to conduct a rare field trip to the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Mass, where lie the remains of Henry Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The sacrilege not far away is
Sheila Shea's headstone on which is engraved, "Who the hell is Sheila Shea" No doubt someone thought this was funny and irreverent, just like Sheila. Well, irreverence is momentary, death is eternal, and no doubt poor Sheila Shea will be cursed for her rudeness for as long as her tombstone stands. That's no way to be dead.