R.I.P. And Pass The Buffalo Wings

Hard to know what to think about this one.

An interesting story in the Press-Enterprise, a newspaper that is based...somewhere (its website is amazingly vague about that), is promoted with this irresistible headline:

"Funerals are becoming a personal celebration."

This is how it begins:

"Louise Felicetta threw her husband, Dominic, a big bash on Feb. 24, the day after his 72nd birthday. At the Gourmet restaurant in San Bernardino, 200 friends and family members nibbled on wings and meatballs, danced to a live band, watched the couple's life unfold on videos and sifted through photos and memorabilia.

"But the guest of honor wasn't there. Dominic Felicetta, of Rialto, was dead. After a short bout with pancreatic cancer, he had been cremated. His ashes eventually will be co-mingled with his wife's and buried in the family plot.

" 'He didn't want a funeral or memorial," says Felicetta, 79. "It was a special day. I came home a little sad, but uplifted." '

Yep, that's how I'm hoping Mrs. BoomVista will feel on that somewhat special day. A little sad, but oh-so-uplifted.

Setting that aside for the moment, along with the fact that the piece attributes all of this to self-absorbed Baby Boomers, even though Mr. Felicetta and his slightly melancholy but uplifted widow are Boomer Emeriti, the article does reflect a growing reality.

Many of us are unlikely to do the fill-in-the-blanks funeral routine. As the piece says, without any apparent awareness of the pun, "Blame it on baby boomers for thinking outside the box."

Mrs. BoomVista, for instance, knows that I want to be buried with a portable XM Satellite Radio and a six-pack of batteries. Yes, XM's 60s music is that good. I'm serious (not to be confused with Sirius).

What about you? Given it any thought? Oh, c'mon, you know you have.

The rest of the article is here. (Upon close examination, the Press-Enterprise might cover the Riverside-San Bernadino area of southern California. But it's apparently not the sort of thing they want to say definitively on their web page.)