When I was in Middle School and High School and my father, a 3rd generation funeral director, would talk to me about being a funeral director he would always say something like this, “It’s a noble profession. You won’t get rich but you will do fine making a nickel at a time and you will have a tremendous self-satisfaction about helping others in your community.” After my father’s death I did enter the funeral profession, mostly out of a commitment […]
New York United States Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced last week that it is her belief that consumer funeral cost relief is part of the $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill passed by both houses of congress and signed into law by President Trump in December. Here’s what Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez says in this article from Business Insider, “After our BX+Queens district became the most COVID-hit in the country, I spent much of the last year working on an issue that was devastating […]
While I have not stayed up to date on the federal government dictates of the Biden administration, the moratorium on student debt payment is, I believe, ending on February 1, and may be extended. The moratorium program has proven to be well received, as according to the article mentioned in the next paragraph, almost 90% of those with federal student loans are taking advantage of the moratorium. I had not thought of this program in the coronavirus relief measures until […]
There is no doubt that 2020 has been a different year in so many ways. Even a hundred years from now it will be remembered as the COVID-19 pandemic year. And, in many ways, it has been a very rough year for funeral service. This radio and print report that you can read and/or listen to here from Houston Public Media tells the story of Houston based funeral director Manuel Guerra. Guerra tells of working for his employer and at […]
As we move into the weekend we bring you some reading material including an article on how the indigent funeral program in Ohio has more requests than usual because of a combination of not only COVID-19 deaths, but an uptick in opioid deaths as well. We also bring you a video and news story out of Buffalo that tells of a crematory about to re-open after paying a fine and being temporarily shut down by the New York State Department […]
“Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio”. Those were the lyrics of the Simon and Garfunkel song “Mrs. Robinson” released in 1968. The country was in the summer of a presidential election and was mired in a controversial war in Viet Nam at the time. The lyrics harkened back to a simple time in America. I took the time the other day to Google lists of the most trusted professions in America and if those two artists would compose that song […]
Funeral directors are interesting creatures. We live to serve. . . . that doesn’t happen in every profession. I told my wife the other day as we live in this pandemic world every body seems to have all the answers. Politicians are acting as scientists, scientists are acting like politicians, parents know more than the teachers, teachers know more than the administrators, and every where you turn. . . . somebody has an answer . . and that answer always […]
So, I warned you earlier in the week that I would be doing a column on what was happening with Starbucks and why I thought there was enough general information in what I had heard that it would be useful to people who operate businesses in the death care realm. To refresh you, I had told you that last Friday I had heard Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson be interviewed by CNBC’s Jim Cramer on his morning show. Johnson went through […]
This isn’t what I was planning to write about an hour ago. It’s Friday as I write this and earlier this morning I was on the treadmill watching CNBC with Jim Cramer as he was interviewing Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson. I thought the interview was very informative on how Starbucks was using the pandemic, that they had no control over, to analyze and pivot their business model to a structure that would be even better post-pandemic than it was prior […]
In today’s Afternoon Edition we will provide you with some articles that came out over the weekend. There is probably something for everybody’s interest in these articles as we always find that it is interesting to catch up with what is going on in other parts of the United States or in other parts of the world. Here’s what we have today: North Carolina among the last states to make death records electronic. North Carolina has, according to this article […]
