“Pardon My Hearse” by Allan Abbott & Gregory Abbott
The job you were hired to do and the job you do today sure are different.
The Old You, in fact, would only barely recognize the way things are done in the modern
workplace: you’ve welcomed revolving competition, new technology, and alternate
methods as they’ve arrived. For Allan Abbott & Gregory Abbott, that’s especially true
but in their new book, “Pardon My Hearse,” they offer snapshots of the ways we’ve
departed.
As a young member of The Greatest Generation, Allan Abbott grew up working. He
“spent a great deal of time on scrap drives” during World War II, became a paperboy at
age eleven, and started a business with a fellow classmate when the two of them were
still in high school. That business never took off, but something clicked when the boys
bought their first pre-owned hearse.
The “morbid-looking 1941 Packard” was purchased for use as a cheap camper but Abbott
made money by selling rides and crystals found on camping trips. Later, when the
Packard was sold, the partners bought two newer hearses and began delivering floral
arrangements to funeral homes. It wasn’t long before someone asked them to pick up a
body and, though they were “flying by the seats of [their] pants” and were barely out of
their teens, the request led to a lifelong career.
Initially squeamish, Abbott and his partner were also open to learning. In a time when
legalities were relaxed and privacy laws nonexistent, they observed autopsies, shadowed
medical examiners on cases, and received help from other funeral directors who were
happy to support them. One of their earlier responsibilities was filing Death Certificate
paperwork, which they transported aboard motorcycles, and when other opportunities
appeared, the two men seized them and were soon the go-to guys for Everything Funeral,
including caskets, deliveries, removals, and modified hearses.
Hollywood A-Listers began to seek them out for limo rentals. Some of those same A-
Listers became clients in death, though Abbott and his business partner served any Los
Angeles citizen in need of funeral services. They did it every day, round the clock, for
fifty years, even when the funeral guys needed funerals for their own.
If, as they say, stories are how we learn best, there’s a lot to learn inside “Pardon My
Hearse.” Indeed, this book is like eavesdropping at a funeral director’s convention, with
each tale outrageously outdoing the last.
That can be fun to read, but there are also several anecdotes that are unsettling. Authors
Allan Abbott & Gregory Abbott dish on celebrity deaths that stick in the elder Abbott’s
memory, as well as unusual funerals for everyday people – but they likewise share stories
that raised my eyebrows, including tales of trespassing and collecting dead-celeb artifacts
at odd times. That’s interesting stuff, yes, but also very wince-worthy.
And yet, this peek inside the funeral industry of yore is good for the names and facts that
will intrigue Hollywood watchers and industry folks alike. Just beware, before you start
it, that “Pardon My Hearse” is a little different…
c.2015, Craven Street Books $16.95 / $17.95 Canada