The Attention Seeker

By Jim Hagarty

My Dad used to tell this grim story about a one-room schoolteacher who died in our rural area many years ago.

He was a very tall man and the “undertakers” back then had a heck of a time fitting him in his coffin. They bent his legs as much as they could and finally managed to get him situated, with the bottom half of the casket closed and the top half, open.

At the wake, everyone was gathered around discussing events when something very strange happened.

In those days, embalming was a rarely performed exercise, apparently, and so the corpse had not been disturbed before being placed in the coffin. During the wake, rigor mortis set in and the large man’s legs straightened out. When they did, having no place else to go, the upper half of his body had to push out somewhere.

And so Peter sat straight up.

This had the effect of eliciting a few screams and many stifled chuckles. I don’t know what course of action the undertakers followed after that but I have a feeling that was not a high point in their careers.

Having been a teacher, I guess it was only natural for Peter to want to command everyone’s attention. And he sure did during his final class.

He sure did.

Author: Jim Hagarty

I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.