Dying to get in.

BOSTON – Sen. Edward M. Kennedy began his final journey Thursday, first past landmark after landmark bearing his family's famous name and then to his slain brother's presidential library where mourners lined up by the thousands to bid farewell to him and an American political dynasty.
Crowds assembled along the 70-mile route that snaked from the family's compound in Hyannis Port to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, where his body lay in repose.

We're funny with the dead. Funny strange, not funny ha-ha.

We trot them around, put them on display and, the more famous you are, the longer it takes. Often they wind up on trains or long car rides.

Most of the time we don't like dead bodies. The ones that lie in the street or wind up washed ashore are gross and disgusting, and we turn our heads - after we get a good look. But we seem to relish the opportunity to look at a body in repose. Bodies made-up with sticks inside and the blood drained out are somehow appealing and even some sort of social event where we invite people who knew the deceased so they can stand around and gawk at it too.

I wonder what the mourners get out of walking up to a flag-covered casket after waiting in line for a few hours. They say they're "saying goodbye" but I figure they're satisfying some inner feeling that has nothing to do with saying goodbye to someone who couldn't possibly know you're there.

Then, they'll put the box in a hole in the ground in a cemetery. I figure we'll eventually run out of room for cemeteries. They're already pretty much maxed-out at Arlington, and one wonders if they'll start stacking them at some point. At this stage in our development as a species, I'm surprised that we still box-up the dead and bury them. Some people buy those giant marble boxes and put the body in a little stone shed. That always seemed ostentatious to me.

I figure I'll die alone, so I'll need to plot-out my instructions so they don't screw up and bury me someplace. I don't take up much space in life, so why should I take up any in death? Burn me to bits and blow the ashes in the wind, back where I came from. No funerals or those morose viewings (visiting hours or whatever they're called) where the only people benefiting from it are the funeral homes. It all seems so pointless to me. Your well wishes do me no good after I'm dead.

But I'm funny that way.

Funny strange.