Digging Up A Dead Guy - Part 2 of 2

Here goes part 2....

We got out of our trucks, and my client introduced me to the Coroner. In Monterey County, the Sheriff and the Coroner are the same person. It is a high level elected position so I doubt the guy we met was the official Coroner. He was dressed more like a Deputy, and was carrying a gun. We also met a guy driving an unmarked station wagon. The wagon was set up on the inside like a hearse, but with dark tinted windows. The guy driving that was just a driver. He stayed back and didn't want any part of this mess. He was probably the smartest one at this event.

Next, the family members get out of their trucks and walk up to meet us. I was taken back upon seeing these guys. The family members were two brothers. Each of the two brothers was covered in tattoos. I don't have a problem with tattoos, but this was a shock. These guys were wearing those white tank tops. You know, the ones that used to be call "Wife Beaters" back in a less politically correct time. These shirts showed off their collection of white supremacy tats. One of the brothers even had a swastika tattooed right on his forehead. That must have made him really employable. Not to mention the smell. These guys stunk. They had the sickly sweet smell pouring out of them. The smell of meth heads, mixed with extreme body odor.

These two guys really thought they were something. They came out with an attitude. I'm a big guy. I'm 6'5" and at the time I was pretty heavy. I wasn't yet 400 pounds, but I was on the way and probably around 300 pounds. I was a little bit intimidating myself, and I may have even had a little bit of an attitude. I really don't like white supremacists. Now the brothers kind of came up on me and got up in my face. I think they thought they could intimidate me and expected me to quiver. I didn't back up. Like I said, I may have had a little bit of an attitude as well. Here is how it went down.

Brother # 1 - You doing the digging?
Me - Yep.
Borhter # 2 - Couldn't you find a ********
Me - This is my job for today.
Brother # 1 - You going to dig fast? We got a long ways to drive.
Me - Yep, I'm planning on getting done quick and taking my kids surfing.
Brother # 2 - Just make sure you show my Mother respect.
Me - Shouldn't be a problem.

The guy with the gun was smirking. My clients didn't know what to think. There was testosterone overload in the air. The brothers just stood there and tried to stare me down. Finally, my clients said "Let's do this."

I grabbed my pick and shovel, and we all started looking for the right grave site. The numbers to the grave sites were on little rock markers, and in some cases, these little rocks had been moved. When we found the right number, it was pretty obvious that the marker had been moved. It looked like I was going to have to estimate where to dig.

I picked a spot and started to dig. Wow. The ground was a lot dryer and harder than I expected. I started calculating in my head..... 6 feet down, 3 feet wide, 6 feet long. Hmmm. This was not going to be a one hour job. This was a lot bigger job than I had expected. I began to sweat almost immediately. My tattooed buddies were starting to get impatient, and it was starting to get hot outside. Just as I was about to have to take a break, I hit something.

Back in the day, High Schools used to teach things like Wood Shop. At the time of this lady's death, kids in Wood Shop at Salinas High School build coffins. They built all the coffins used in the burial of people in the Paupers Cemetery. They did not always have the best workmanship and they never used the best materials. The coffins were actually built out of very cheap plywood. The thought being "who would complain?"

Once I hit something, I could tell it was the coffin. Now I had to find the edge of the box. That kept me going for awhile. At this point, my shirt was completely soaked, I was starting to smell as bad as the family members, and I was really, really tired. It was to the point where I was going to have get down in the hole to finish the job, but first I need to rest. One of my clients jumped down in the hole to keep things moving while I caught my breath.

As soon as I caught my breath, I got down in the hole. I brushed away some dirt, then heard a little sound. It sounded like a crack. The next thing I knew, the top of the coffin collapsed and I had fallen into the coffin! Just as I fell in, the smell got me. I freaked. I jumped out of the hole and became violently ill. I was heaving my guts like never before. The Coroner actually started laughing out loud. My Clients were chuckling to themselves, but the family members didn't find the humor in it. They started yelling at me to get back in there and to "show their Mother some respect!"

After a few more moments of getting sick, I climbed down into the hole. Just as I got in the hole, I hear a clunk. I look to the left and see a green bag, all folded up. The Coroner had thrown it in the hole with me. It was a body bag. The Coroner told me to "transfer the body to the bag and let's get the hell out of here."

I moved as far back in the hole as I could, and began to pry the top of the coffin off, throwing the pieces out of the hole. The body itself was tiny. The woman was probably no more than 5 foot tall. She had been burried in a cotton/polyester blend dress, with nylon stalkings. How did I know what she was buried in? Well even after 40 years, the nylon and polyester didn't break down or disintegrate. The leg bones were perfect inside the nylon stalkings, with absolutely no flesh.

I started the transfer by grabbing the nylon stalkings and moving the lower half as a single unit. As I started to transfer the body to the bag, I had to climb out of the hole one more time. A combination of the noises of the bones and the smells and the whole thing just got me. This time nobody thought it was funny.

I got back in the hole and finished transferring the body. The entire time I'm loading the bag, the family is yelling at me to show some respect. I load the bag and hand it up to the Coroner. I then climb out of the hole. I'm dripping wet and completely exhausted. I thought I was done. Then they ask me to help carry the bag to the station wagon. Almost done!

Just about then, the guy with the swastika tattooed on his forehead looks around and says "Lots of ********** in this neighborhood and I hate to waste a perfectly good hole." At this point even the Coroner has had enough of these guys. He tells them not to push their luck. He had them sign some papers and I shut the back of the station wagon.

After all that I was done, both physically and emotionally. I went home and took a long shower and a long nap. I never did make it to take the kids surfing that day, but man I had one heck of a story to tell.

Digging Up A Dead Guy - Part 1 of 2

Ever since I hinted that I might tell this story in my last blog entry, I've received a lot of requests from my readers to hear about the time I dug up a dead guy. Even I have to admit, it is a true classic....

I've done many jobs over the years. I've started and owned many business ventures over the years. At one time, I owned a hot rod shop called Phase 3 Automotive Technologies, located in beautiful Salinas, California. Well it started out as a hot rod shop, but I soon found out that tuning Subaru's paid the bills. I also found that when you pay your employees, sometimes they go on a drunk and don't come back to work for a couple of days, or worse, are found face down in a different County. Whoops, I guess I better save the Phase 3 story for another day. Back to digging up a dead guy.

After I closed up my shop to take a job as a sales rep with one of my customers, I found myself unemployed. Now there is an old saying among computer guys. "A good computer guy is never unemployed, just running his own consulting firm." I kind of followed along that line, and ran a small computer and small business consulting firm.

I was pretty lucky. I knew a ton of business people in the community. Many of my customers at Phase 3 were fleet accounts. It was an easy transition to move these folks into my client base. Business wasn't always as busy as I would have liked, but we always got by.

One of my clients was a "Memorial" business. They made tombstones, and provided services to the city for some cemetery maintenance. I had never thought much about how tombstones were made. I had assumed that some old guy with a chisel would hammer on a slab of granite. I was wrong. Tombstones are now high-tech.

A tombstone starts out as a chunk of granite. My clients would shape it to the desired shape. A rubber mat is cut so that the letters are exposed. The engraving on the granite is then done with a very high powered sand blaster. As the sand hits the stone, it etches into the granite where the rubber mat has been cut. It is kind of a cool process.

My clients had purchase a Sumagraphics digitizer tablet. This allowed them to lay out how the tombstone would look. They would then send the finished product to the printer. The printer in this case was a little different. It actually cut the rubber mat for them. While it doesn't sound all that cool now, 20 years ago this was state of the art stuff.

I was installing the device and kind of bs'ing with my clients. They were complaining that they were going to have to rent a back ho to exhume a body. I forgot the amount they were talking. It didn't seem that much to me, but they were under some kind of city contract where they were going to have to eat the costs themselves.

I asked them why they were going to exhume a body. They said that back in the 1950's a woman was passing through town and unexpectedly died. They city was unable to identify her or her next of kin. The city took care of her remains, and burried her in the city "Paupers Field." Forty years later, her children had tracked her down and wanted to move their Mother to a nicer final resting place.

Now my business was ok, but I was always looking for more money. I spoke up and said that I would dig her up by hand, and I undercut the estimated costs of the backhoe by at least a hundred bucks. "You would do that?" the guys asked. "Sure, how hard could it be?" I figured I would make a good day or two wages for about an hours work, and I could still take my kids surfing in the afternoon. It sounded like easy money!

Client: "Do you know where the Paupers Field Cemetery is?"
Me: "Ahhh no"
Client: "Well it's right next to the Chinese Cemetery."
Me: "Hey guys, I don't spend much time at cemeteries." "Why don't you just tell me an address and I'll find it."

This was starting to get a little weird. I didn't even know they had segregated cemeteries. Well they then told me it wasn't in a very good part of town, and we agreed to meet at their business early the next morning. They said I could follow them out to the cemetery, where we would meet the Coroner, and the family. This was going to be easy money. I could follow them out, dig up the body, and get out quick. They could deal with the Coroner and the family while I took the kids surfing.

The next morning I threw a shovel and a pick in the back of my 4x4 and headed over to meet my clients. I then followed them to the Paupers Field. When we got there, the Coroner and the family were waiting outside. This didn't look like any cemetery I had ever seen. It looked like a big dirt field. It actually looked like my back pasture in Prunedale, minus the nice oak trees.

My clients unlocked the gate to the cemetery and pulled out a little map. Since many people who were buried there were unknown, there was a small numbered plaque indicating the grave site. The family knew the number of the grave, so we headed off.

We got to the correct area of the cemetery and got out of our trucks.

This is where the fun starts. Stay tuned for part 2!

Pondering Retirement?

When you are a little kid you always dream of what your will be when you grow up. A cowboy, a race car driver, an actor, a cop, a fireman or a tow truck driver. These were all things I would dream of. Nobody ever dreams of becoming an Accountant or a mid-level IT Manager. As we get older, our dreams become more realistic. We take on responsibilities and settle into our jobs.

When we reach a certain age, we again dream about our careers. Maybe dreaming of a second career, like opening a restaurant, an ice cream parlor, or an auto repair shop. Sometimes we do these things, sometimes we just trudge along on our current path. As we get a little bit older the dreams move to retirement.

Ahhh. The joy of sleeping in, not having to commute, and not having to put up with all those crazy people at work. I admit it. I would love to retire. I'm 50 and everyone I know around my age feels the same way. What's funny is for the most part my day job is ok. I don't have to get dirty, I don't have to dig up dead bodies (that is a true story that I may have to tell in a future blog), and I make pretty good money. I have great health care benefits and an official retirement plan. My job allows me to enjoy a pretty nice life. Realistically, I don't see retiring in the near future, at least not from my job. Although I am going to retire from something.

I am officially retiring from sparring. I will no longer be sparring at the gym. I am continuing to have problems with my rotator cuff and I just don't recover as fast as I used to. It has been getting harder and harder to keep up with the 25 year olds. Don't get me wrong. I love fighting and competing against the guys half my age, it just takes me more time to recover and my body is starting to pay the price.

I'm going to keep working out with them. I'll continue to do drills, hit the bag, hit mitts and do all of the conditioning. I'm just not going to get punched in the head anymore and I'm not going to spar in jujitsu. While I am sure I'm going to miss it, at least I can concentrate on staying in shape and letting my body heal.

In the future, I'm going to try and be a little more consistent in my blogging. I've got some good things coming. I will be posting a new bag workout, a new cardio workout, and some good stories like digging up a dead guy.

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