Wall of Death

Growing up in a funeral home, there was a sense of death that lingered and lurked around every corner. There was the “death phone” that rang in the middle of night to alert my father that someone had just died, the “death smell” of my dad’s hands after an embalming, the scent of grief and cigarette smoke wafting through the house during a visitation, the grave marker station in the basement, the selection room full of caskets, and last but not least, there was the “Wall of Death.”

My dad was an avid sportsman and liked to mount his dead, stuffed hunting accomplishments on the “Wall of Death,” newly abbreviated here as the “WoD.” The “WoD” was in our TV/family room, leaving even The Dick Van Dyke Show and Hee Haw seeming a bit somber and sad, what with all of the dead eyes staring back at you from behind the television. At one point in time, my father’s carcass wall boasted 13 fish heads, 3 record sized bass, 2 deer heads, 1 deer skin, some turkey beards, and a lone barn owl. Please know that my father did not kill the owl, as he is a stickler for the law. My father found the poor dead owl on the side of the road, after it had been hit by a car, and proceeded to load in his car and take it to the local butcher/game warden, Morris Dean, to have it mounted.

Morris Dean was a bit of “hoot,” whose stories were endless, as he had traveled all parts of the world to hunt wild animals. He had bear hunted in Canada, salmon fished in Alaska and I’m pretty sure at one point, I saw pictures of him holding up a large giraffe in a sandy location. He had a full, dark brown beard and was usually wearing a flannel shirt, down vest and tall rubber boots. Morris was the first person I had met that didn’t have a firm hand shake, as he was missing 2 fingers on his right hand and 1 on his left. When I asked my father why Morris had only 7 fingers, his response was, “He is a butcher. They are all missing fingers.” I’m still surprised, to this day, that Morris’ fingers were not stuffed and hanging behind our television on the “WoD.”

My dad was fascinated with biology and wanted to pass that along to me, so I was typically asked to watch during the game cleanings at Morris’ house as a weird anatomy lesson. Morris considered butchering an animal to be both a fine art and meal opportunity. He would slice and dice and show us different cuts and techniques, all while eating some part of the game he had just cooked on his Bunsen burner to his left. Talk about fowl being foul! Meat processing is one of my life skills that, oddly enough, didn’t make the cut for my resume. Now, when we have “The Revolution” that my dad keeps prattling on and on about, meat processing might climb to new importance in my life.

My dad didn’t always have things processed at Morris’, however, which gave the “WoD” new family significance. Being a mortician, my dad had lots of access to formaldehyde. He went through a phase of trying to preserve his fish heads himself in the back corner of the garage. He lined up several 5 gallon buckets, filled them with embalming fluid, and then took a board across the top with a string wrapped around the board that lowered a fish head into each bucket. He thought himself brilliant.

Unfortunately, the embalming fluid, which had a sweet taste to it, mixed with the appealing odor of fish heads proved too tempting for our cats. We came home from our summer camping trip to find our Thunder and Lightning (and a couple of random, innocently by-standing squirrels), lying hard as rocks on the garage floor. This was the end of my dad mounting fish heads. Morris was pleased when my father returned to his home to give him more business.

All jokes aside, I am grateful for my father and his life lessons, even the one about meat processing. I find that our senses help recall the little things in life, whether that be through a smell, noise, or even the sight of a dead animal staring at you from a wall. The older we become, the more the little things remind us what is important to our spirits. As for Morris Dean, he is dead now… I am grateful he didn’t make the cut on the “WoD”.