Your Most Disturbing Realizations

[LizzieMaine]

Yep. The Colonel came to hate Heublein with a purple passion. "That ****** bootline outfit" was one of the more printable terms he used. And its management was usually referred to as "a bunch of silk-suited sonsofbitches."

THeir strategy was to build as many stores as possible, but they had no idea how to oversee consistent operations for such a huge chain, and the quality of the food collapsed by the early '70s. The Colonel was furious, and came to an annual corporate meeting spitting fire -- they knew something was about to happen when he walked in wearing a black suit instead of a white one. And he got up there and told them all to their faces exactly what he thought of them and what they were doing to his product. Heublein didn't appreciate the public reproof, and threatened to sue him into poverty if he didn't shut up and go back to being the lovable old Southern gentleman. Which, as an old man in his eighties, he had no choice but to do.

Alone among the fast-food moguls, Sanders deeply cared about food *as* food, not just as something to use as an excuse to buy real estate, and the whole Hueblein adventure left him deeply wounded. The company very nearly collapsed for good in the '70s, before Hueblein was absorbed into R. J. Reynolds, which dumped it like a bucket of old bones on Pepsico. Sanders didn't live to see that, and he wouldn't have been happy about it if he had. He was strictly a Coca-Cola man.

 

[Fading Fast]

It sounds like he cared too much and should never have sold the company.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think he was in way over his head. He was a small-town man with a seventh-grade education who took real pride in his cooking, and the only reason he ever went into franchising at all was because it was all he had left after the Interstate bypassed his motel/restaurant. He sold out only when it got too big for him to manage every detail himself, and he was naive enough to believe that the people he was dealing with shared his values. But you don't see too many silk suits around Corbin, Ky., and he found out the truth only after it was too late to back out of the deal.

He did have the sense to keep the rights to Canada for himself, and to this day Canadian KFC is much closer to the original product.

 

[Harp]

Harold's: yes. I also like Brown's, and Church's isn't bad- but occasionally, too salty...

Harold's; Brown's; and the Church's near Makkiki Heights in Honolulu. Of the trio, Brown's is best.

 

[Bushman]

Harold's; Brown's; and the Church's near Makkiki Heights in Honolulu. Of the trio, Brown's is best.

I actually haven't made the trip to Brown's in a good long while. I feel like a taste is long overdue.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Seeing a swastika chalked on the wall in, of all places, the swap shop at the local dump, and realizing once again that Santayana was right.

 

[Bugguy]

Buried Mom this morning.... my first time managing all the arrangements solo. 18" square hole 3' deep next to Dad. Small marble box, no frills, no ceremony: $10K. 90% paperwork and fees. The lot was pre-paid. I did it right, but unbelievable. She had a good 96-year run and passed peacefully.

Also, surprised to know that the Healthcare POA outlives the person... for authorizing cremation. I would think the executor would manage it; he/she pays for it from the estate.

 

[BobHufford]

Sorry for your loss @Bugguy.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Buried Mom this morning.... She had a good 96-year run and passed peacefully..

My condolences to you and your family. Despite the good, long life, the “finality” of it takes a while to process. Take care and be gentle with yourself.

 

[Woodtroll]

Buried Mom this morning.... my first time managing all the arrangements solo. 18" square hole 3' deep next to Dad. Small marble box, no frills, no ceremony: $10K. 90% paperwork and fees. The lot was pre-paid. I did it right, but unbelievable. She had a good 96-year run and passed peacefully.

Also, surprised to know that the Healthcare POA outlives the person... for authorizing cremation. I would think the executor would manage it; he/she pays for it from the estate.

So very sorry for your loss, sir. A good long life, indeed, but still a hard blow. Sincere condolences.

 

[Flipped Lid]

Buried Mom this morning.... my first time managing all the arrangements solo. 18" square hole 3' deep next to Dad. Small marble box, no frills, no ceremony: $10K. 90% paperwork and fees. The lot was pre-paid. I did it right, but unbelievable. She had a good 96-year run and passed peacefully.

Also, surprised to know that the Healthcare POA outlives the person... for authorizing cremation. I would think the executor would manage it; he/she pays for it from the estate.

First of all, my condolences. This will seem like a very conspicuous return to this forum after an absence of several years, but I am absolutely flabbergasted by the $10,000 price tag. That was a blatant ripoff. I work part-time at a funeral home here in Indianapolis. You had what we refer to as a direct cremation- no visitation or service. Our price for that is $695.00. That includes removal of the remains from the location of death and cremation. That does not include a container for the remains or a burial plot, but you noted that the burial plot had been prepaid. I can’t begin to imagine how that $10,000 cost could possibly be justified. I know that the most expensive funeral home in this area charges significantly less than half of that for the same services.

There is probably nothing you can do at this point, but I recommend that you contact the funeral director and ask for an itemized list of the fees charged if you weren’t provided one.

Folks, if you are considering pre-planning your funeral arrangements, which I highly recommend, shop around. You’ll probably be astounded by the differences you’ll encounter from one place to another.

 

[vitanola]

Buried Mom this morning.... my first time managing all the arrangements solo. 18" square hole 3' deep next to Dad. Small marble box, no frills, no ceremony: $10K. 90% paperwork and fees. The lot was pre-paid. I did it right, but unbelievable. She had a good 96-year run and passed peacefully.

Also, surprised to know that the Healthcare POA outlives the person... for authorizing cremation. I would think the executor would manage it; he/she pays for it from the estate.

So sorry to hear of your loss.

 

[tonyb]

Buried Mom this morning.... my first time managing all the arrangements solo. 18" square hole 3' deep next to Dad. Small marble box, no frills, no ceremony: $10K. 90% paperwork and fees. The lot was pre-paid. I did it right, but unbelievable. She had a good 96-year run and passed peacefully.

Also, surprised to know that the Healthcare POA outlives the person... for authorizing cremation. I would think the executor would manage it; he/she pays for it from the estate.

So sorry to hear the news. It's a terrible loss, but given its inevitability, it sounds like it went about as un-badly as could be reasonably expected.

As I've noted a time or three in this space, among the most trying aspects of this not-being-a-kid-anymore stuff is losing so many friends and relatives to the reaper. My mother is still with us. She's undoubtedly elderly now, but she's still with us. I'm thankful for that, and I offer my sincere condolences that you can no longer say the same.

 

[1961MJS]

Sorry for your loss. Both my Dad and Mom have passed, Dad 2011, Mom 2014. As long as they don't spend too long in a Nursing Home they and you are very lucky. Dad lasted about 5 weeks, Mom 9 weeks, but my old neighbor beat them all to heck. He was in less than 12 hours. They didn't even charge him.

One of Mom's last meals on the outside was at a DQ in Hillsboro Illinois just up the street from her nursing home. That DQ was where I went after swimming lessons as a kid.

Later

 

[Tiki Tom]

I found this short clip “A 97 Year Old Philosopher Ponders Life and Death: What is the point?” to be haunting.

That said, note Mr Fingarette’s last words:

The day before he died, Fingarette uttered his final words. After spending many hours in silence with his eyes closed, Hasse said, his grandfather suddenly looked up and said, “Well, that’s clear enough!” A few hours later he said “Why don’t we see if we can go up and check it out?”

“Of course, these cryptic messages are up to interpretation,” Hasse said, “but I’d like to believe that he might have seen at least a glimpse of something beyond death.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/604840/being-97/​

 

[tonyb]

Realizing what a cringeworthy fool, a**hole, idiot, boor, jerk, chump, etc. one has himself been, and knowing that all he can do at this point is avoid being any of those things now and in the future, seeing how no one can undo what has been done.

I happen to be well acquainted with a character who is something of a master at self-sabotage. He has an accounting degree, an MBA, and a JD. He is now disbarred and, at retirement age, is driving Lyft (he had been with Uber but they terminated their relationship with him because he was being who he has long shown himself to be). Listening to his account of how he came to find himself where he is might have a person thinking the whole damn world is out to get him. I’ve come to recognize that as another sign of his profound lack of self-awareness.

It’s gotta be willful, that self-deception of his. He’s a bright fellow, an academic star, and certainly capable of taking a more detached view of himself.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Reminds me of an acquaintance who was going on and on about all her multiple failed marriages and relationships. Later, someone snidely noted that the common denominator in all those romantic car crashes was her. She, although very bright, is completely blind to this possibility.

 

[LizzieMaine]

If the shoe doesn't fit, maybe it's because your foot's too big.

 

[belfastboy]

So sorry to hear the news. It's a terrible loss, but given its inevitability, it sounds like it went about as un-badly as could be reasonably expected.

As I've noted a time or three in this space, among the most trying aspects of this not-being-a-kid-anymore stuff is losing so many friends and relatives to the reaper. My mother is still with us. She's undoubtedly elderly now, but she's still with us. I'm thankful for that, and I offer my sincere condolences that you can no longer say the same.

My mother died a few years back just a few months short of her 95th. She was the 'last man standing' and I often wondered how it was for her having to watch all her family and friends slowly pass from her life. But then I would have the counter thought, well, better to be the watcher than the watched.

 

[3fingers]

My mother died a few years back just a few months short of her 95th. She was the 'last man standing' and I often wondered how it was for her having to watch all her family and friends slowly pass from her life. But then I would have the counter thought, well, better to be the watcher than the watched.

My grandmother died in 2001 at the age of 93. She was one of the older siblings in her family, but she outlived all of them. She was a widow for over 20 years and also had to watch my father be buried.
She didn't understand it but accepted it as her lot in life and God's will for her.
She is still my hero all these years later.