By Jim Hagarty
2011
My Dad told this story about a one-room schoolteacher who died in our rural area many years ago. He was a very tall man and the “undertakers” back then had a heck of a time fitting him in his coffin. They bent his legs as much as they could and finally managed to get him situated, with the bottom half of the casket closed and the top half, open. At the wake, everyone was gathered around discussing events when something very strange happened. In those days, embalming was a rarely performed exercise, apparently, and so the corpse had not been disturbed before being placed in the coffin. During the wake, rigor mortis set in and the large man’s legs straightened out. When they did, having no place else to go, the upper half of his body had to push out somewhere. And so Peter sat straight up. This had the effect of eliciting a few screams and many stifled chuckles. I don’t know what course of action the undertakers followed after that but I have a feeling that was not a high point in their careers. Having been a teacher, I guess it was only natural for Peter to want to command everyone’s attention. And he sure did during his final class. He sure did.
