Aunt Mimi's Ashes
By G. George Ostrom
The Forest Official in Regional Headquarters was flabbergasted…he didn’t know the answer. I had just asked him, “If you guys find out where I scattered Aunt Mimi’s ashes out in your bushes, are you going to make me climb the mountain and pick up the pieces?” He said he would check with higher- ups and let me know.
All this foolishness started when Iris and I read a story in Saturday’s Inter Lake about three ladies who have a business in Missoula where they can be hired to go far out in the woods with the final remains of your loved one and scatter them about. They figure most business will be from out-of-staters who can’t get here. They have been told that was a “no-no” on the National Forest’s millions of acres, OUR millions of acres. Almost choked on my pancakes when I read that.
The three ladies all wear white dresses to be just opposite of the black clothing people wear to regular funerals where the remains are pickled in formaldahyde, then placed in expensive boxes which are buried inside a state-mandated cement crypt in the ground. The business is called “Ladies in White” and President Frances Coover says, “We are returning people to the earth from whence they came. That is what societies have done for centuries.”
As I write this column near the press deadline on Monday, I’m waiting for calls from the State Forestry and the U.S. Regional Office in Missoula. Those guys are apparently working under great pressure to act rapidly because I heard one whisper aside to another, “We’d better come up with something fast. I’ve heard Ostrom makes up stuff for his column if he can’t get info from the government.”
Some of you readers may recall a column in which I told in great detail of how the man who supervised the entire clearing of land and construction of Hungry Horse Dam was taken in his urn out to the Elks club for a couple of final toasts with his local cronies then flown up over the reservoir in a Cessna 180. While circling over the dam around Graves Creek, the somewhat snockered friends held the urn up to the window and were immediately covered by ashes blown back through the opening by hundred mile an hour winds. There they were, choking and gagging on the final remains of their “good ol’ buddy.”
For many years there were the remains of a man in a metal container still inside of a shipping box, under some stunted trees near the Hidden Lake Overlook in Glacier Park. Hal Kanzler and I were among several hikers who noticed the package over the years. I’ve assumed that someone eventually took out the container and scattered the remains up there. Can’t imagine his survivors being so lazy they couldn’t have done that. I hope he didn’t give them anything in his will. On second thought…maybe that’s why they just threw the whole package off the trail.
As to scattering ashes from an airplane, there is a right and easy way to do it. I’ve helped on a few. Mike Strand and other pilot friends have done many. Maybe the Forest Service will have to get patrol planes to watch out for guys like us.
Well…it’s getting nearer and nearer to absolute “press time” and the State and Federal guys haven’t called back. If they do, I’ll fill you in next week. In the meantime, I am going to call those in Missoula and suggest they not wear their highly visible white dresses for “scatterings” in the near future, and switch to forest green “camos.”
At least until the Federal Forest Bigshots get their heads out of an area where the sun never shines.