September 2018

Page B6 SEPTEMBER 2018 FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY NEWS S ec t i on B By Mike Jamar Hearse On Fire I’ve never heard a story quite like this before, but I have a feeling this isn’t the only time something like this has hap- pened. It had been a pretty smooth funeral, no real issues or concerns. The casket was loaded into our hearse, a beauti- ful silver Cadillac with a nice royal blue interior. Of all of the hearses we’d had over the years, this was my favorite. The procession started toward the cemetery, which was only a couple of miles from our funeral home. Alfred, our general manager, was driving the hearse, which was typi- cal, and I was in the passenger seat. Dad tried to get me involved in the funerals as often as he could. He had plans for me to take over the business in the future, something that was never going to happen, but that is another story. As mentioned, Alfred was driving. He could do almost everything dad could do service-wise and would be the person in charge if he was not available. Alfred was prob- ably in his 70s at this point and was great with the be- reaved. Alfred once had a different career, but in retire- ment he really liked helping with the funerals. Dad was driving the family limousine, which he often did. All of a sudden smoke started coming out from un- der the hood. Alfred and I both thought it had something to do with the radiator, maybe one of the hoses had come loose. It was not bad at first and the temperature gauge Mike Jamar is founder and co-owner of Advanced Integration Technology. Mike has been working with computers since the early 80s and started Advanced Integration in 1994. Advanced Integration specializes in Internet inventories designed for specialty vehicles and equipment. HearseHub was created through a collaboration between Advanced Integration and Nomis Publications, and is now in its fifth year of service. HearseHub brings together funeral vehicles from a number of dealerships that specialize in high quality funeral vehicles. HearseHub offers funeral directors a large, and easy to shop inventory, of funeral vehicles. You can reach him at Mike@AITAdvantage.com. www.nomispublications.com Funeral Home & Cemetery News Contributors share insights and exchange ideas. B logs was not showing hot yet. Since we were less than a mile away from the cemetery, we thought we could make and decided to press on. The smoke got worse, but the gauge still had not changed. That was when we got a whiff of the smoke. It was not steam, which is what it would have been if the radiator was at fault. Something was burning. Alfred and I looked at each other, with the same thought, “What do we do now”? Could the other cars in the proces- sions see and smell the smoke? Can dad see the smoke? Can we make it the mile to the cemetery? All was answered when from under the hood, a huge cloud of smoke enveloped the hearse. Alfred pulled to the side of the road and we both jumped out. It’s possible that on that day dad had his first no- tion that I might not be cut out for the funeral business, be- cause as I worried about the car, Alfred and dad were worry- ing about the casket in back and were already in action. Alfred had the church truck out, and dad was rounding up guys to help get the casket out. It went like clockwork, almost like this had happened a thousand times before. The casket was out, onto the church truck, and rolled out of the way be- fore I even knew it was going on. I just watched as that beau- tiful silver Cadillac burned. I’m not sure dad or Alfred paid it any mind at all. They were busy coordinating how they were going to get the casket to the cemetery and finish the service. I guess that’s what it takes to run a funeral, always thinking about the “what ifs” so you can respond to them appropri- ately and make sure the funeral service goes well, no matter what. Dad had also rounded up a very nice pickup, and with the approval of the family, had made it our contingency hearse for the rest of the trip to the cemetery. What remained of the service went off without a hitch. The hearse was towed to a service station and put in the back. I bet everyone in town drove by to see our burned- out shell of a hearse. This all happened on a Tuesday af- ternoon and when I went back to school the next day, I was the popular man on campus. Everyone wanted to hear about the fire, and I had a bird’s eye view of the whole event. Then Friday rolled around and everyone started talking about the upcoming football game, with that the fire and my popularity up in smoke. For my high school years, this was my 15 minutes of fame. HearseHub To insure that a buyer can visit HearseHub and search effectively for the body make, body model and color, we have to load each vehicle manually to HearseHub. I had just finished writing this story and was starting the Hearse- Hub load routine, something I did daily. Low and behold the first vehicle to come up was a black truck, listed as a hearse. This had never happened before. I have had many cars listed as hearses or limousines, but never a truck. How strangely appropriate after just writing about a truck used as a hearse! Black and Chrome Motorcycle Cremation Urn and Motorcycle Cremation Bell Perfect Memorials Now Offering New Painted Motorcycle and Motorcycle Bell EDEN PRAIRIE,MN— Per- fect Memorials has an- nounced they’ve added two new painted motorcycle cremation urns and a mo- torcycle cremation bell to their very popular Heaven- ly Creations Urn Line. “We are very excited to begin offering our new mo- torcycle-themed products to our growing base of loy- al customers,” says Shawn O’Brien, product special- ist at Perfect Memorials. “Our customers come to us looking for variety in prod- uct selection and value in pricing,” says O’Brien. He goes on to say, “The new Highly Detailed Black and Chrome Motorcycle Urns and Motorcycle Cremation Bell products add some ex- citing variety to this prod- uct line that has offered tremendous value to our customers for years.” Perfect Memorials is of- fering the new Black and Chrome Motorcycle Cre- mation Urn in both large and small sizes. The large has a capacity of 220 cubic inches and the small will hold up to 20 cubic inch- es. Both sizes feature a bold painted finish with jet black gas tank, seat, and fenders, and real chrome accents that make this urn a memo- rial any motorcycle enthu- siast would be proud to be remembered by. Both sizes of this urn are offered with personalization including multiple lines of engraving, artwork, poems. In addition to the new motorcycle urn, the Mo- torcycle Cremation Bell is a lasting memorial for mo- torcycle enthusiasts and their loved ones. The Mo- torcycle Cremation Bell is sold as an accompaniment to all motorcycle crema- tion urns offered by Per- fect Memorials, and also as a standalone item as a key chain or holiday or- nament. The bell is made of 100 percent brass and is featured with a brushed metal finish. The Motorcy- cle Cremation Bell holds a small amount of ashes and allows for two lines of en- graving on both the front and back as well as sever- al popular artwork designs that can be added for an- other custom touch. All Heavenly Creations Urns by Perfect Memorials are made of a very durable cold-cast resin that is high- ly durable and resists fading from UV light. The urns have a removable panel with a rubber seal that will securely hold the cremains of the remembered allow- ing these heirloom quality memorials to be cherished by loved ones for years and generations to come. Perfect Memorials is one of the premier suppliers of high quality and affordable memorial products. Their list of memorial products offered includes cremation urns, cremation jewelry, pet urns, outdoor memori- als, and many other types of personalized and custom- made memorial products. Both detail painted mo- torcycle cremation urns are currently available at www. PerfectMemorials.com. Passare Announces New Collaboration Feature: Note Mentions Passare is the funeral profession’s only collaboration system with integrated case management, offering a best-in-class ex- perience for funeral professionals and the families they serve. With this latest release, Passare custom- ers can mention other users within the sys- tem using the @ symbol, similar to how friends are mentioned on social media. Mentioning a user will trigger an email, text, or system notification. For example, if a funeral home manager using Passare wished to notify a funeral director that a family will be coming in for an arrange- ABILENE,TX— Passare, Inc is proud to announce the release of a new collab- oration feature, the ability to mention users in notes, checklists, and other sys- tem messages to trigger a notification, which allows funeral professionals to collaborate more effective- ly as they serve families. ment conference, the manager would sim- ply type @ and select the funeral director’s name from a dropdown list, and then the funeral director would receive a notifica- tion based on his/her notification settings. Groups or teams can also be notified of messages in a similar manner based on their roles in the organization. “We are thrilled to offer our customers the ability to mention users throughout the system,” said Jay Thomas, CEO of Passare. “No other administration system allows this level of team collaboration and responsiveness to families. This feature is one of many that our team has released based on feedback from our funeral home customers. This feature is a perfect exam- ple of how Passare is collaborating with the funeral profession to build the best collaboration system in the profession.” Passare is the funeral industry’s only cloud-based collaboration system with in- tegrated case management. With Passare, funeral directors can connect and commu- nicate with families anytime, anywhere, using any internet-connected device. Pas- sare features a variety of integrations with some of the funeral profession’s leading providers such as ASD, CFS, funeralOne, Messenger, Frazer Consultants, Feder- ated, Funeral Directors Life, and many more, which allows funeral professionals to save time, streamline processes, and col- laborate as a team on cases. To learn more about Passare and request a free demo, vis- it www.passare.com.