We often wonder when we consider something benign - someone else will proclaim it indecent, unlawful or simply wrong. I find that an individual who has come up with a business plan to decorously scatter a deceased loved one’s ashes on scenic public lands peculiar but in the way of such things a harmless nuttiness that is endearing.

Carol had no problem with her first husband’s ashes.  He loved golf and he loved the fact that Carol was the girls’ camp director of Camp Scatico in Elizaville, N.Y.  He had spent many a visitation summer’s day hitting golf balls from under a grove of trees at the edge of that great camp lawn.  That was the perfect place in Carol’s mind and she had the approval of daughters Nancy and Karenne for the burial of his ashes amidst those trees overlooking that pleasant place.

There are so many “real” issues about what to do with the remains of those who die these days.  We cannot keep up with how many and where bodies are hastily buried.  In India the practice is either cremation or exposure of the dead to the ministrations of carrion birds.  We have a way of death here in America and it contrasts with the practices in other parts of the world.  But, one does wonder why the U.S. Forestry Service would assent to protests against Three Women in White who for a small fee hike in the wilderness and scatter ashes as they go. In ancient days the body would rest so that the bones would be collected and placed in a family “ossuary”.  Other ancients mummified remains for eternity in pyramidal tombs.

It is almost funny how we care so much for the lives of the unborn and so little for the lives of the poor, diseased and abandoned once they have failed the test of being “just like everybody else.”  It is tragic to think of the religious motivation that is behind giving dignity to some and refusing it for others.  If you pass some test of belief or some life experiences you have the right to be interred in “holy” ground.  If you are on the wrong side or get in the way of battle between sects you just get hurled into a hole in the ground with minimal care for in hot counties they run out of ice pretty soon.

You get to asking why some bodies are more precious than others while each is just dead and the right thing to do is get them under the ground quickly for decency’s sake.  Scattering ashes in symbolic terms such as at sea or in specially designated places have offended some groups and cannot be gainsaid.

I think that Carol chose wisely and that Kermit Bloomgarden’s urn lies interred where he would have wanted it to be. Kermit died while playing golf on a course in Newark, N.J.