“Oh bury me not,” Herb sang, “on the lone prairie…”

“You’re in a fine mood this morning, Herb. Pass me the hot sauce, will you?” said Doc. “Thanks.”

Doc thought a second. “You feeling okay, guy?”

Herb shrugged. “Sure, Doc.”

“How about the rest of you?”

We all nodded. “I’m good too,” said Steve, which wasn’t always a given in his case.

“Well,” said our pal who sports more degrees than a thermometer, “I suppose it’s this virus that has us thinking about death. I hate it. In normal times, when do we ever think of funerals and burial and all that? Never, really. But now …”

“I know one thing for sure, Doc,” said Dud. “If you keep putting all that hot sauce on your eggs, we’ll be digging a hole for you sooner than we planned.”

That started the laughing, but it also started us thinking, which can occasionally verge on the dangerous.

“There’s always cremation …,” said Steve. 

“Yep,” Windy chimed in. “Goin’ up to Oregon, Steve?” 

“Why would I do that?”

“Well, they got this yere Tillamooky Rock Lighthouse there. Named it after that Tillamooky cheese I perspect,” Windy said. “Filled that sucker up with burned-up bodies. Mebbe so your body would be okay with them guys. But you gotta burn up first. Just ashes in a can or something.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Nossir, Doc, it’s a pre-imaginated fact fer shore. Lighthousey-type folks say there’s over 467,000 burned-up folks in there already.”

Steve shook his head. “Not for me, Windy. Don’t like crowds.”

“Well then,” said Windy, “there’s outfits that kin dump you in the ocean, or bury you on the lone prairie. And if you don’t have a sleepin’ bag, they’ll sell you one. And if you don’t want one, you kin just git … buried, ya know?”

Doc nodded. “Cheaper than a casket, Steve.”

“Hmmm,” he said. “Lone prairie sounds better to me. How’s the view?”