WEBVTT - What's the deal with headstones? 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:04.360 Welcome to Stuff you should Know from House Stuff Works 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:13.040 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:17.360 There's Charles Seby, Chuck Bryant, sons out. Jerry's over there. 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:21.680 It's the end of July. There's a son out. Can 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:23.880 you tell him this tone? I can see I have 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:26.279 a window. I can look out behind you over your shoulder. 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:30.480 You must I mean this. I can't imagine you're not depressed, 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:33.640 just staring at foam. Yeah. When I look behind me, 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:37.199 it's like, jeez, but you're the light. Thanks. That just 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:41.240 makes everything. Okay. That's so nice of you. You're making 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:44.479 me blessed. I know. So how are you doing? Oh 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:48.400 I'm sleepy? Okay, well, well let's get this over with. 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:51.960 So sucking. Let good ticking naps and I guess we 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:55.160 have those like Japanese style nap rooms here. We're very forward. Thing. 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:57.400 That would be wonderful House the Works. Yeah. I don't 0:00:57.440 --> 0:00:59.480 think i'd be able to do that at work take 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:02.840 a nap, no, no way, No, I don't think I 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:05.000 would be able to either. But I would think it'd 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:07.520 be wonderful just because it would show how progressive how 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:10.679 Stuff Works is. We should have nap um cubbies that 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:13.319 are like plexi, so you can just watch people nap. 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:16.920 How uncomfortable would that be? Or yeah, it would be 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:20.120 very uncomfortable. There's probably one or two weirdos here that 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:23.080 would love to do that. Yeah. Jonathan Strickland sucks is 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:30.639 thumb not a surprise. Um? Yeah, this was cobbled together, 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:33.120 this one, which is unusual. Yeah. Where where did you 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:36.400 get some of the information? One was the International Southern 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.480 Cemetery Gravestones Association, and the other was the U S 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:44.759 Department of Veterans Affairs, definitive sources. You know all about 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:50.720 headstones and grave markers and tombstones yea by any name. Yeah. 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:56.400 I think the professionals who make headstones or grave markers 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:00.920 or tombstones call them funeral markers, are grave markers. That's 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:03.800 the lingo of the jargon of the industry. Yes, and 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.760 this pairs nicely with our Coffins podcast. Dude, it pairs 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:08.560 nicely with a bunch of them. This is part of 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:13.679 the Dying Suite. Will never end until we die. Here 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:19.360 lies Josh and Chuck the death Swite. Um, So, Chuck, 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:21.640 you want to talk a little bit about the history 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:24.520 of this stuff. I've got a little bit of history. 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:26.560 I don't know if you have or not about how 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:30.000 long humans have been burying the dead. Let's hear it, 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:33.000 it's pretty old. As a matter of fact, there's evidence 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:38.720 of like weird funeral rights kind of at least an 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:43.600 assemblage of people acting differently, or an assemblage of primates 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:49.280 acting differently, um around a recently deceased member of their 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:53.960 group in bunabo um apes. So they'd like to poke 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:58.639 it and think it's not moving. Um. I don't think 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:00.680 they were poking it, but the way that they were 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.000 interacting with one another, like those with the highest rank 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.840 had the most access to the body. Um, they were 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:10.040 kind of guarding it from being disturbed. Uh, like early 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:16.120 signs of respect. Interesting and apparently Neanderthals as well, UM 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.400 used to as as as far back as two fifty 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:25.079 years ago. There's evidence that parts of the dead Neanderthals 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:29.079 were put away from the rest of the group in 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:31.680 what you could consider like a resting place like a 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:33.959 cave or something like that. I wonder if that started 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:38.000 because of just obvious things like smell and rotting bodies, 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:41.400 or if it was just or maybe both. Well, I mean, 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:45.240 we're hard wired for disgust to experience disgust, and disgust 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.720 warrns is like, don't eat that poop unless it's a 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:53.520 fecal transplant. Um, don't eat that vomit under any circumstances. 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:55.680 There's a lot of stuff that you shouldn't do, like 0:03:55.840 --> 0:04:00.960 don't don't um eat that dead body. It's turned Um, 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.560 it's not a nice fresh dead body. So I would 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.760 guess that funeral rites grew out of the our sense 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:11.920 of disgust. Like you're saying, um, the that's just kind 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.880 of ambiguous stuff. Though the Neanderthals like they they de 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.279 fleshed bones and then place the bones in separate places. 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:21.640 Some people are like, well, it's evidence of cannibalism. Other 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:26.880 people are saying, that's a funerary practice. The unambiguous evidence 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:31.039 of burials comes I think about eighty thousand years ago, 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:34.359 between forty thousand and eighty thousand years ago in Egypt, 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:40.040 child was buried um next to a cobble pit. What's that? 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:42.760 It's where you like, you excavate stone to like pave 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:47.000 roads or something with although forty tho years ago they 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:50.360 weren't making roads. I'm not sure what a cobble pit 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:55.160 is nothing to do with it's an excavation pit. Um. 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.240 I guess that they were excavating stones to make tools. 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:01.080 I would guess rather them roade. But there was a 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.520 child buried by anatomically modern humans between forty thousand and 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:06.880 eighty thousand years ago, so we've been doing it for 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:11.000 a very long time. Yeah, but this is just burial. Right. Well, 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:13.320 we're talking about our headstones and they didn't come along 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:18.320 until far after that, right. Uh, Well, there weren't well 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:23.560 let's go back and them further to Roman and Celtic times. Uh, 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:27.760 they had headstones that there were kind of it seems 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:29.520 like they were pretty advanced for the time. And then 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:34.000 there was a period where they weren't so um detailed, 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:38.040 but early on they were super detailed. They would have pictures. 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:42.240 They would describe things that happened, these battles that took place. 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:47.080 If they died in battle and uh, Salmon's in Scotland, 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.960 they would describe the profession maybe uh if sometimes it 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:54.159 was pictorial, like if someone was a carpenter, they wouldn't 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:55.880 say here lies a carpenter. They would just have a 0:05:55.920 --> 0:06:00.200 hammer maybe, um, like a saw. Yeah, that's a that 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:04.279 giveaway that it was a carpenter. Uh. Scotland was very descriptive. 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:06.480 Apparently in their early days of headstones too, they would 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:09.520 describe professions. So like early on it seems just like 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:12.479 the profession was a big deal, right, like this is 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:16.520 what they did here on earth. And in other cultures too, 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:20.320 there was this idea that you could erect a memorial 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:25.279 to somebody by placing a stone or something, an upright stone, 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:28.680 not necessarily at their grave, but like there's things called 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:32.440 stella um that are basically just markers that say like 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:35.800 this person did this um, or this person fought this 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.000 battle in one or lost, or this person was great 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:41.960 for some reason that makes us want to memorialize it 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:44.560 by carving this into a stone and placing it upright 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:47.800 and never said this person didn't do so much. Not really, 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.760 that came later in the twentieth century. But the idea 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:56.360 of stones period was before gravestones even. I think the 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:59.480 term headstone from what I gathered, is from the Jewish 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:05.000 custom of marking graves with stones and then um. I 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.599 think the other cultures did that too, like uh, supposedly 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:09.400 to keep the dead from rising, they would I thought 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.160 that was cool. But I've also heard and I think 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:14.480 it makes sense that they didn't want the bodies to 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:18.600 be disturbed by, you know, packs of wild coyotes. Yeah, 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.440 so to combat that, and if you were lazy and 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:24.920 didn't feel like burying, or you lived in a place 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:28.280 where the dirt was just too hard, you could make 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.960 something called a cairn or carn. Yes, c A I 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:34.400 r n and right, yeah, I'm not sure I was pronounced, 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:36.760 which is basically like you lay the body on the ground, 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:38.920 maybe you dig out a little bit of a shallow pit, 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:41.440 and then you place rocks around and on top of 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.360 it so that no, not even like the hungriest coyote 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:45.600 is not going to be able to get through this 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:50.080 pile of rubble. And then you may also erect like 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:52.720 a marker at the head of it. Sure, and these 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:57.200 I think at this point pre nineteenth century, I don't 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:00.240 even think there were cemeteries. It was just you would 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:02.920 be buried near your family plot, near your home with 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:07.280 your family. Um, but they weren't all gathered together a 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:11.040 bunch of dead people in one area. Uh well, it 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:13.400 was the whole family, was there, Yeah, but not like 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:18.640 a cemetery. And then depending um, on where how how 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:22.160 many people lived in a village, say, eventually that morphed 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:26.119 into a churchyard. The graveyard was moved to the church 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:30.560 because the church was so intertwined in people's everyday lives 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:32.880 that it just made sense that that's where you would 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:38.400 go to be buried. The thing is these were almost um, 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:44.079 purposefully gloomy places. They were um reminders. Yeah, it was 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:47.040 a reminder that you're gonna die a memnto maori. The 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:51.280 churchyard itself was a reminder that you're gonna die. Um. 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:55.719 And they were not landscaped. They were usually they had 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:58.600 a fence around him maybe, and there were the markers, 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.160 but that was about it. It wasn't meant to be 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:06.240 a place of solace or peace or meditation. Yeah, there's 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:10.199 one over in my neighborhood. There's a churchyard. Uh cemetery, 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:13.440 and it is it feels a little different than just 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.280 your average cemetery. It is, it looks a little different, 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:19.199 and it's does seem a little like I don't know. Well, 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:20.880 the reason why is because you and I are used 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:27.280 to what's called the Rural Cemetery Movement, the the RCM. Right, 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:31.240 you know, you have that T shirt but that that 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:33.960 was that came out of the nineteenth century. The I 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:38.319 think um the early mid nineteenth century where this idea. 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.600 As cities built up and people became further and further 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:44.920 removed from nature, and you also had less and less 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:48.920 space to just bury somebody in a churchyard, they started 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:53.760 moving the dead slightly to the outskirts of the city 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:58.080 and also put some thought into landscaping the area as well. 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:01.720 So what you have is what you and I think 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.839 of as a modern cemetery, very park like, nice shrubbery 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.600 um paved roads that that allow people to go through 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.040 a nice place for visitors. So much so that very 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.640 early on in the rural cemetery movement, for a while 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:19.040 families would go picnic there on Sundays. It was like 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.040 a park, but you also plant you're dead there too. 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:25.160 It was a little bit of both, but it and 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:27.520 also during this time that's not very surprising because during 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:31.280 this time death was so much more fully intricate, integrated 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:36.760 into the life of the average person that um having 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:38.720 a picnic there on a Sunday it didn't seem at 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.680 least bit bizarre. Macaw. Yeah, there weren't the hang ups 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:43.720 like we have these days. It seems like right, because 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:49.000 nowadays it's sterilized and removed. Death is Yeah. Back to 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:54.720 the headstones the Celts started using once Christianity came to Ireland, 0:10:55.160 --> 0:11:01.000 they started using the the Celtic cross, which was originally 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:03.920 the I think called the sun cross, which was a 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:07.560 pagan symbol. But then um, I think St Patrick and 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:10.800 put the Christian cross over the sun cross and we 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:14.400 now had our Celtic cross and they started using that 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:18.839 became kind of a common but again not um specific, 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.160 just sort of like an unmarked grave still with the 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:25.920 Celtic cross, no inscription, right right, Yeah, that didn't come 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:30.480 until later. But like you said, there was um, there 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.640 was a lot of symbology or symbols attached, and then 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.360 over time it evolved to include things like date of birth, 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:41.120 date of death, the person's name, um, and then inscriptions 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.079 later on. Yeah, and thanks also to the Irish um. 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.320 They were the first ones I believed to get a 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:51.199 little cheeky with their uh sense of humor um And 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:55.920 I don't know, but well they probably yeah. But one 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.000 example that in the article I read said I think 0:11:58.040 --> 0:11:59.960 of me as you walk by where you now stay, 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:02.240 and so once did I, which is you know for 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.920 the eighteenth century. That's that's a big time funny, right 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:08.760 because it rhymes yeah exactly. But again that's what's called 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:11.680 the memento More. It's like a reminder that you're gonna die, 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:14.560 so don't get too big for your breeches or don't 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:17.200 forget to go live your life. There's all sorts of 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:22.479 reasons for that. Uh. And America and the colonies, um, 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:28.440 colonial times, it wasn't super fancy um, and they used 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:30.800 they started to use things like limestone and marble instead 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:33.439 of wood, which would last longer in sandstone. But then 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:37.120 in the eighteen sixties they moved to igneous rock. Which 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:42.400 always want to say ignacious because of I always want 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:45.840 to say because Confederacy dunces. I think was it the 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:47.800 name of one of the characters. Yeah, the main guy, 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:52.839 Ignacious Riley was. It's igneous. What about saying ignacious who? 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:54.880 I don't know who was? If there was ever a 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:59.200 name for a saint, it's ignacious saying ignacious? But what 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:01.920 was he? The saint? I don't remember, just his name 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:04.199 always stood out to me like that is a saints name, 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:08.839 patron saint of podcasting? All right, Um. In the six 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:11.719 so they started using the igneous rock, which is underground 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:16.800 cooled rock, and that was much more permanent because other 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:19.840 stuff crumbled and you know the sandstone. Yeah, let's talk 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:24.160 about weathering, shall we. Um And in colonial times too, 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:28.600 when they were using these markers and headstones. Um. So, 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:32.880 symbology has been a part of headstones for a very 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:36.760 long time, whether it was the Celtic cross or a 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:41.439 saw to indicate a carpenter or whatever. And in the colonies, apparently, 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.679 um they like to remind everybody that only the most 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:49.240 pious select few we're going to go to heaven. The 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:52.280 rest of you are going to hell. Like, no bones 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:56.720 about it, buddy, you are going to hell. Sorry, And um, 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.120 I would like to use my headstone to remind you 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:01.200 of it. So I'm gonna put a sculling crossbones on it, 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.360 the death's head. They carved the death head, the death's 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.200 head onto the gravestone to remind others that they were 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:11.959 going to hell. That's what the Puritans did. Yeah. The 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:17.160 Victorians were fancy and always so they had really elaborate 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:21.040 headstones and tombs, and they were also big on like 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.880 the really nice park atmosphere. Well that's what that's what 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:26.920 it grew out of, was the Victorian era. Yeah, and 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.520 you sent a link to about some what some of 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:33.720 the Victorian symbols mean, right, Yeah, they had some there's 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:38.200 weren't quite as they weren't intended to be a reminder 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:39.760 that you're going to hell. They were a lot more 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.560 hopeful and a lot of these you still see on 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:46.400 tombstones today, headstones like modern ones and people who are 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:50.160 buried today, Like you'll see a bundle of wheat gathered together, 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:53.160 and that's the indicate that somebody lived a nice, long 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.040 life and and they were harvested and they will go 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:59.160 on and into the next life. A gateway might be 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.440 nice because that means sure, that's the gateway to heaven. Yes, 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:05.120 any kind of arch or gate Yeah, butterfly is the 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:09.120 symbol of resurrection. That's very nice. Um, if you have 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:12.640 a broken column, it indicates that you were cut down 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:18.440 in the prime of life, taken too young. Um. If 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.800 you have a flower that's broken, have you ever seen that? 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.360 Uh No, it's like it's it's it'll be like a 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:28.320 rose or something and then it's like snapped into That 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:32.400 indicates that, um, you were you died suddenly and if 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:34.920 it's a bud, if it's not an open flower, it 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:38.120 indicates it was a child. So there's like all this code. Yeah, 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:42.080 an hourglass is the transience of this life, right, or lamp, 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:45.600 the light of truth. Clasped hands, you know where there's 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:50.000 like somebody holding somebody else's hand that means like take care, 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:55.720 I'll see you in a few years. Or the saddest 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.200 maybe maybe the willow tree. That's just morning and that's 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:00.920 just really sad. It is sad, but there's none of 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:05.040 these are reminders that you're going to You're gonna go 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:08.400 to hell when you die. It's gonna be bad. The 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:11.360 Victorians were a little more uplifting. If anybody had their 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:13.680 finger on the pulse of death, it was the Victorians. 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:16.880 They just knew what they were doing. Another thing human 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:20.680 beings did in the eighteenth century was more safe. These cages, 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.440 iron cages they would put over um. But the Victorians 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.720 were like, no, that's really untoward. Well get rid of those. 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:30.120 Part of the reason why is because there wasn't that 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.400 need for it anymore. It was remember the cairns or 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:37.320 the carns me to stay carns. And it's probably wrong, 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:40.880 but that was to protect from coyotes disturbing the grave. 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:50.160 He also said Morls, yeahs and Kama Jacoma. Yeah, that's 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:54.960 what I said, Laura said Jacama. The more safe were 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:57.840 to protect the body from being dug up by people 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:01.400 who were robbing graves to sell the body to anatomists. Yeah, 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:04.160 or I imagine, you know, maybe loot the body as well. 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:08.760 On your way, like here's your body. Um, disregard where 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:11.639 that wedding gold wedding band was on the finger right? 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:15.080 Remember Mr Burns has um the suit that Charlie Chaplin 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:19.760 was buried in in a shadow box on it. That's 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.879 a good one. Uh. And that kind of you know, 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:25.560 brings us I guess, I mean that's skipping forward though. 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:29.520 But the modern era, the last hundred years has been um, 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:32.520 I mean headstone. The headstone industry is a big deal. 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:37.159 It's it's you know, people put a lot of thought 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:39.760 into what goes on their headstone or their family's headstone, 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:42.720 and cost a lot of money. And you can be 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:44.840 as ornate as you want to, or you can do 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:50.080 like in Royal Tannin bombs and invent your own fake headstone, 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:52.040 which is pretty good. You wanting to talk about some 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:54.800 of these ones. Yeah, some of these epitats. We have 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:58.399 the slide show on stuff you Should Know dot Com 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:01.639 called the twenty one remark Coble Epitaphs, and it is 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:05.439 definitely worth checking out. Um, and this one's my favorite. 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:13.280 Chuck Charleskowski, Yeah, Fewkowski's don't try that on. Yeah, and 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:15.560 he has a little pugilist too. Yeah. Well, he was 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:17.240 a huge boxing fan. I think he might have been 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:22.280 a boxer himself. He died, yeah, crazy. Yeah, for some reason, 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:25.080 I thought he was like in the eighties or something. No, 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:27.920 he's still working in the eighties. Yeah. Boy, he didn't 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:31.120 look good there at the end. Well, he pretty much 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:33.879 drank him to death, I know, but he Yeah, he 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:36.160 looked really bad. I remember seeing a documentary I think 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:38.480 from the eighties or not early nineties. Is that the 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:40.600 one where he like kicks his wife off of the 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:44.400 couch or something. He's like being physically abusive in the documentary. 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:47.159 He wasn't a nice fellow. No, he really wasn't. No, 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:50.640 he's not at all. You saw bar Flat, right, That's 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.320 one of my all time favorite movies. I figured it's 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:57.760 a good one. Who's that one? Mitchell's Oh, it's just 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:01.040 a person. Yeah, these are just like no worthy. Well 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:04.639 this sucks that awesome, Yeah, that seems like something I 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:07.920 might do. Actually, well this sucks on your grace stone. Yeah, 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:09.760 because this got me thinking of what I would want, 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:13.320 you know, um, And I mean I didn't come up 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:15.240 with anything, but I think I would just want something 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.520 sort of like humble, like, you know, he tried his best, 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:22.159 but you know, maybe he didn't do such a good 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:28.000 job all the time. Yet more, I wouldn't want to 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:31.720 like flout, like to out anything or trump up in 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:34.680 a life, you know, like he was a simple dude 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:38.359 who tried to not be such a jerk. How's that? 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.960 That's a good one. What about mel Blanks? Yeah, that's 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:45.439 all folks, that's a good one. Man. Of one thousand voices, 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:47.800 that's very nice. Some of these are a little smallsey 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:52.240 and sweet. This one was good. Robert Klay Allison his tombstone. 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:54.960 He died in seven at the age of forty seven. 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:58.080 His epitaph says he never killed a man that did 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.280 not need killing. That's pretty good. That's a gun slinger 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:03.879 right there. Did you know that only like four or 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:06.920 five times in the history of the United States, where 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:10.439 was there an actual gunfight in the center of town. No, 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:13.080 it sounds like a good don't be dumb. Oh yeah, 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:16.680 make a mental note. I think it's verified like five 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.679 times or something. It's very much a movie thing. I 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:22.480 mean there were plenty of gun you know, people shooting 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.920 in gunfights, but but like the whole like, hi, yeah, 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:27.600 come out in the middle of town and draw your 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:30.199 guns at the tick of the clock or whatever. You know. 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:34.280 Whaticed was a surprisingly good movie Three o'clock High. Did 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:37.280 you ever see that Richard Tyson and Casey Samasco. Yeah. 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:39.120 I saw that when it came out and thought, man, 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:41.240 this is kind of a different movie. And then years 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:45.520 later it's sort of a cult favorite. Uh. That guy 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.359 what was his name in the movie The Bully but 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:50.440 his real name, No, his name in the movie, I 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:53.040 don't remember. It was like he had like a scary 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:55.600 first name or something, and he went on to a sale. 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:58.680 Arnold Schwartz and anger in Kindergarten Cop. I didn't see 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:02.440 Kindergarten Cop. Really, Yeah, you should see it? All right, 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:04.800 you want to do anymore? We should we just tell 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:08.320 everybody to go check these out. I think we should 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:11.680 just near let's see this one more raised four beautiful 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:14.720 daughters with only one bathroom, and still there was love. 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:18.719 That's nice, It is nice. He wants to be morbid, 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:21.280 you know, I don't know. I think there's something to 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:23.600 be said. You're just gonna be some morbids. Mine will 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:28.920 probably say boom, I'm coming to get you right and chuck. 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.359 One more thing about um epitaphs and gravestones before we 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:35.239 move on. UM. There was this thing. Remember why two 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:38.119 K y two K bug I wasn't sold on that 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:40.760 to begin with, Well, there are a lot of potential problems. 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:44.439 It wasn't just with computer programs. One of them was 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:47.760 the grave marker industry. A lot of people by their 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:52.439 headstones ahead of time, and they had nineteen and then 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:56.560 nothing after the date because they expected to die in 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:59.280 the twentieth century. Well, a lot of people had to 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.320 have this filled in and re etched because they lived 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:05.399 into the two thousand's. There was a big problem, and 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:10.840 apparently a lot of long standing UM gravestone makers around 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:14.000 the sixties or seventies started really trying to persuade their 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:17.040 customers did not etch that in. A lot of people 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:19.720 didn't listen, some people did, some people didn't. Why would 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:22.120 you get that done ahead of time? I understand picking 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:24.120 out your plot and you're what you wanted to say, 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:27.720 but the actual etching, like who cares? I guess these 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:30.439 people really didn't want their families that have to do 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:33.520 almost anything. I get that, like, just put nine nine 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:38.480 in there, like I'm alive, it's two thousand. I gotta 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:41.560 call that guy. Yeah exactly. I mean, what a what 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:43.800 a thing to have on your to do list. You 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:47.480 need to get my epithelf filled in and recarve, drink 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:51.680 ovaltee and get epithets carve um. All right, So we'll 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:53.480 move on here after this message break and talk a 0:22:53.480 --> 0:23:01.840 little bit about military graves and government funded headstone Okay, 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:05.120 so government furnished headstones and this is from the Veterans 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:08.240 Affairs website. But I thought that's pretty interesting. They also 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:14.520 call them Obama stones. That was off the cup. That 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:21.040 was good originally. UM. I found it interesting that standard 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:24.520 grave markers were even before the national cemeteries were established 0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:27.240 in eighteen sixty two, and they had, like you know, 0:23:27.280 --> 0:23:29.120 prior to the Civil War, they had all these frontier 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:34.439 armies and they would just bury you in uh, don't 0:23:34.440 --> 0:23:37.800