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JG: Do you have any memories of when you were just starting out in the business? Is there, was there anything kind of memorable that stuck with you when you were just beginning the trade?

GF: Gosh, I hardly remember what happened yesterday, now you're talking... I've been working in the mortuary since I was seventeen, so forty-odd years. And most people retire after twenty-five, but I've been there for forty years. Memorable, memorable... nothing, you know, my father knew the only way I could learn the business is to start off at the bottom of the totem pole, which I did. And I would start off actually working in the -- [phone rings] excuse me. I would start off working in the morgue and I would dress remains, cosmetize them. I would clean the cars, gas the cars. I would drive the limousines. I would pick up the remains, get death certificates signed. So I learned from the very bottom, and so I guess that, that's something that's memorable to me, is that my father didn't say, "Okay, just because you're my son, I'm gonna start you at the top, or towards the top." He put me at the bottom, and that was good for me because I did learn all the different facets of the business. And it humbled me, too.

JG: What was... I'm sorry, please --

GF: No, I do, I mean, if you talk about memorable things, there are a couple of memorable things that happened, but not necessarily to me at the mortuary, I mean in the mortuary. But I do remember one time doing a funeral service, and it was actually at the old Centenary, and it was really funny because the, the procedure is, in a Christian service, that you seat the family and then the minister comes -- if the service starts at 7:30, for example, the minister comes to the funeral coach at 7:30, we pull the casket out, and we process into the sanctuary for the service, and the minister goes up to the altar and he starts the service. So that, that's the normal procedure, so here I am waiting at the curbside, and the pallbearers are there, the casket's partially pulled out and we're waiting for the minister to meet us to proceed. Then I hear "Amazing Grace." "Amazing Grace"? How come they're singing "Amazing Grace"? I open up the program and I see the order says processional, invocation and the hymn. He forgot to come and get the casket. [Laughs] So he started the service without having the casket in there. And so I told the pallbearers, "Okay, let's take the casket in." So we take the casket in, take it to the back of the chapel, and you can see his face. It's like, yeah, he realized, but he says, "Now as we sing the third verse, let's sing it triumphantly as Mrs. So-and-So is brought in in procession." Set it up, no one ever knew.

JG: Have you had a lot of instances like that?

GF: Oh yeah, I had another one, my very first funeral that I conducted solo by myself was at Venice Santa Monica Free Methodist Church. Jim Yami's church. And I went there, and back in the old days families used to love to take pictures at the cemetery. They would line up all the flowers at the cemetery and then -- we have a cart that we put the casket on -- and then they would stand behind the casket and you would have this picture that they would take. And so we would use our cart, and so there are some times where we're jumping all around from one service to another service, and so the counselor who went at that time had to take a picture, but they had to use the funeral coach for something else, so he was gonna finish the service, they would bury the casket and then he would bring the cart back, stick it back in the car. He never stuck it back in the car. So here, for the first time I went to my first service, and you learn the routine when you set things up, and one of the first things you do when you get there is you pull out the cart, but yet I'm a greenhorn. I don't know. And so it's 7:30, pallbearers are there and my assistant says, "Where's the cart?" And I go to open it. It wasn't there. And what are you gonna put the casket on? Milk crates? And my father just wanted to make sure everything went smooth, that I was doing my first service, and he's calmly, okay, goes inside the church, looks around, gets a piano bench, sticks the piano bench in front of the congregation, the family, and then we have the pallbearers take the casket all the way down to put it on the piano bench. And it just looked normal. No one ever knew. But what would I have done, except probably to panic? And I was ready to crawl into a hole, but my father was there and he was experienced so he knew what to do. So those are some of the funny little anecdotes that I remember.

JG: Did he talk to you about that afterwards?

GF: He probably did. I can't really recall, but I, ever since then, the first thing I would do before I even left, I would look in the car. Is there a cart in there? So I learned my lesson.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.