McCOMB — I’ve heard it said over the years that operating a funeral home is a recession-proof business.
Not so, according to a recent Associated Press article.
People are still dying and require some sort services, of course. But more of them — or their survivors — are price shopping these days, especially in locations hardest hit by the bad economy.
Some are opting for cheaper caskets and fewer amenities.
There are far more cremations in this part of the country than there used to be. I assume cremation is cheaper than the traditional funeral, although I haven’t done any price shopping.
Also, it seems to me, the business is more competitive these days. For example, here in McComb there are more funeral homes operating locally than when I moved here in 1963.
In reading the article about the funeral home business, I couldn’t help but reflect on one major change since I became a newspaper reporter in 1957.
Back then the funeral homes also operated ambulances — not the type of medically equipped vans you see today but hearse-like vehicles with, at best, an oxygen tank inside.
Some of the smaller funeral homes, in fact, used the same vehicles for ambulances and hearses.
That all changed, beginning in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, when demands for better equipment and trained EMTs manning them made running an ambulance business an expensive enterprise.
Here in McComb, as I recall, for a while after the funeral homes quit the business, ambulances were operated by a local service station owner.
That didn’t last long before the public hospital took over the business, which is now run by a private company.
When I was a young reporter in Jackson, my best sources of news were employees at the funeral homes.
I’d call them regularly to see if they had made any ambulance runs. In a day when there weren’t as many privacy restrictions as there are now, they would gladly tell me where they had been and whether the delivery was to the hospital or to the funeral home.
It was a good way to keep up with car wrecks and shootings — the latter of which were far less frequent in Jackson in the 1950s than they are today.
My all-time favorite recollections about funeral homes and ambulances, though, are from my childhood, growing up in a rural area about 10 miles from Hattiesburg.
A character from our community, who was noted for driving his mother’s 1939 Chevrolet pickup truck as fast as it would go, managed to get a job at one of the Hattiesburg funeral homes. This was a few years after World War II, when he had served in the military.
J.D., as he was known, was born to drive an ambulance — if the qualifications only required being willing to drive fast and engage the siren.
That he did, especially if he had occasion to make a call in our community, which was rare back in those days.
One elderly lady, who knew of his propensity to drive fast and recklessly, is said to have told him: “J.D., if I ever get sick enough to go to the hospital, I hope they don’t send you after me.”
“Well,” he reportedly replied, “if they do and if you have two last breaths, you’ll take one of them in the Methodist Hospital.”
J.D. didn’t work at the funeral home very long. I doubt that it was his choice to give up driving the ambulance.
