Going Out in Style

Ever since his sister died four years ago, James Nelson Gernhart had talked of nothing but death and funerals. "Old Jim" had blown a fuse at the way his relatives tried to bury his sister: "They wanted to give her a stinking little three hundred-dollar funeral, bury her like a dog, but I stepped in and stopped that." Now, at 75, old Jim was alone and he wanted everybody in tiny (pop. 2,200) Burlington, Colo, to know that he, at least, was going out in style.

He went over to Kanorado and hired himself a preacher, the Rev. S. H. Mahaffey of the Full Gospel Church. Then he plunked down part of his savings for a $3,600 solid copper casket. When the word got around, some folks didn't think it right that Jim should have a funeral when he wasn't even dead. The singers Jim had engaged suddenly backed out and the school board wouldn't let him have the Community Center auditorium. But the publisher of the town's paper was on Old Jim's side. "Some church people think this is sacrilegious," he said, "but old Gernhart knows his Bible and he defied the ministers to show where there is anything wrong with it." Old Jim substituted records of his favorite hymns for the singers and rented the town's armory. Then one afternoon last week, Old Jim invited everyone in to see his funeral.

Nearly a thousand people filed into the dimly lit armory, sat solemnly down on folding chairs and waited. Promptly at 2 p.m. a hearse rolled up to the door. Eighteen honorary pallbearers formed a double line while eight old friends carried in the casket. Old Jim walked behind the casket, hat in hand, a properly sad expression on his weather-beaten face. The preacher began his text: "He that believeth in me though he be dead yet shall he live." Old Jim turned, beaming, to a friend. "Ain't that guy a preaching fool? I'm gonna set him up for life." Tears gathered in his eyes when the recorded strain of Beautiful Isle of Somewhere floated out over the armory.

Finally, after 55 minutes, the funeral was over. The piano played Rock of Ages; Old Jim wrote out a $100 check for the minister and marched happily out. "Now I don't care what they do with me when I die," he said. "I've got myself fixed up real good."

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