From the Wool-sack
| Publication year | 1995 |
| Pages | 2323 |
1995, October, Pg. 2323. FROM THE WOOL-SACK
The living are forever inventing ways to make life more interesting for the departed.
Back in 1987, the news in the world of the departed was something called Conestoga-2. Conestoga-2 was invented by Celestis Group, a funeral home in Melbourne, Florida. Celestis Group organized a company called Space Services, Inc., and received permission from NASA to launch an orbiting mausoleum from a NASA site at Wallops Island, Virginia.
Those lucky enough to get aboard Conestoga-2 were guaranteed eternal celestial flight even if the quality of their lives would not have otherwise qualified them for celestial flight.
According to the press release, riders aboard Conestoga-2 were to be cremated and placed in lipstick-size containers. When 10,000 such containers were assembled, they were to be hurled into a 1,500-mile-high orbit. The company said that the orbit would last 43 million years.
The advantage to this burial, as it were, over that advertised by the corner mortician, was that participants were guaranteed 43 million years of celestial existence irrespective of their earthly piety. It seems safe to assume that this sort of thing had more appeal for those whose lives on earth filled them with uncertainty as to their future than it would to the self-righteous, an increasingly large group.
That's because a 1,500-mile-high orbit would seem preferable to taking a chance, even if remote, of spending eternity in heaven's alternative. Even those fairly confident of their eternal destination were likely candidates for this new service, being given, as they were, a 1,500-mile boost on their journey to heaven.
Now something new has come on the post-mortem scene. The news I have acquired is this: getting and using credit need not come to an end just because life has. Commercial Federal Bank, a Federal Savings Bank with many offices in Denver and elsewhere in the United States, has introduced this program to Colorado.
John Doe (not his real name), whose estate I represent, died in January 1995. Among other things, he owed Commercial Federal about $7,000 on a home improvement loan that was secured by a mortgage on his home. He had the...
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