Today the old man popped his clogs. Yup, he kicked the bucket and should be pushin’ up daisies by now. Strangely enough, he was fit as a fiddle all the way until he stopped breathing last night.

The entire family swallowed a bitter pill, and we didn’t even beat around the bush when telling the younger kids “Grandpa’s kicked the bucket.” “Really? You mean he died?” they said in their squeaky Mickey Mouse voices. “Yeah. Bite the bullet, but don’t go off your rocker. Now get back in the house.”

The kids went inside and then us adults got ready for the funeral. I was the only one who stayed in this tiny backwater town while the others went off to seek their fortunes. My buddy Glenn was the local undertaker and could still measure someone a half decent coffin, though he lost most of his smarts during his years in the Navy.

We sat down on a half-finished oak coffin when I went to meet him and talked some. Glenn wasn’t the sharpest knife in the kitchen drawer but still thought that I was pulling his leg when I gave up the ghost that the old man died in his sleep last night.

Good ‘ol Glenn had been out of business for quite some time now, but as you might guess every dog has his day. When I told Glenn that I wanted him to get me a new coffin, you would’ve thought that Sir Isaac Newton himself put a spark behind those eyes. He bustled about with rulers and tape like it was his wedding day.

Next week we really hit the funeral out of the park. That’s how my nephew, the one with the baseball cap who thinks Babe Ruth is on par with the Almighty, put it. People from the East Coast to the West Coast came driving vehicles that were held together with duct tape and a prayer or a Mercedes Benz. There was even an honor guard, as dad had been a hero during the war. I doubt he would’ve thought himself worthy of one. He never thought himself worthy of anything, even when he built a phone company from the ground up.

By the time he had passed away the old man was already well over the hill so nobody can say he didn’t live his life to the fullest. After church service presided over by a minister old enough to have seen the Siege of Vicksburg we called it a day. Then everyone gave each other the cold shoulder as if nothing had happened and went back home.