A Week in the Life of a Mortuary Science Instructor

As a preface to this installment of the Apathetic Professor, I’d like to point out what I and a select few of my colleagues noticed after I decided on the name of the new blog.  In the interest of literary cleanliness, I opted to not include the “The” in the URL of this new creation, hence, the website now simply reads “apatheticprofessor.blogspot.com” which, as you’ve all no doubt noticed, seems to read “a pathetic professor.”  While there may be many of my former and current students who wholeheartedly agree with this inadvertent self-evaluation, I found it to be a stroke of unintended genius that underscores both my lack of instructional skills and my lax attitude towards life in general.  Damn, I’m good.

Enough with the pleasantries!  Of the books I read, nearly all of them are non-fiction.  In fact, I view fiction through the same lens as Donald Trump views climate change: it doesn’t interest me because it never happened.  My few forays into fiction include The Godfather (which closely reflects the actual Mafioso culture), Dr. Zhivago (which I’ve purchased but have yet to read), and Rush Limbaugh’s The Way Things Ought To Be, which I read in college and can therefore chalk it up to free-spirited literary experimentation.  Hey, I never smoked the weed or drank to excess so it’s all I’ve got in the way of my “wild college days.”

One form of non-fiction I really enjoy is reading “A Day in the Life Of…” articles on notable people in the world of business or sports.  I am fascinated with the mundane daily goings-on of those who are normally inaccessible to common folk such as me.  So, after some interesting travels two weeks ago, I thought I’d offer you a glimpse into the fascinating world of mortuary science education.

The majority of my students are online and, per our national accreditation standards, they must each be visited at the funeral home in which they’ll be receiving instruction.  With roughly 100 students in the program at any one time, this affords me the opportunity to get out of my office on a regular basis.  Indeed, as I type this blog, I’m sitting in a hotel by the Pittsburgh International Airport after visiting a student in West Virginia today.  Interestingly enough, my first daytime trip through this beautiful state felt like I was driving onto the set of The Deer Hunter: low, gloomy, overcast skies; abandoned factories still standing as a testament to prosperity long past; small homes tucked into the hillside, possibly inhabited by coal and steel workers still longing for their halcyon days. It was simultaneously sad and fascinating.  Incidentally, if you’ve never seen The Deer Hunter, you’re a loser.

The most interesting aspect of my trip earlier this month was the dichotomy of the locales in which my students lived: Kentucky and New York City.  On Tuesday, I flew into Louisville and, as that airport is the hub for all UPS operations, got some titillating footage of their fleet of jets arriving and departing.  (Note: Follow me on Instagram if you like airplanes, stupid memes, and mildly disturbing videos.)  I jumped in a rental car and headed south out of Louisville towards the heart of central Kentucky.  As I cruised down the winding two-lane highway, the first thing that struck me was the amount of trash generated by each household.  I’m not talking two or three of those big trash can’s worth, I’m talking a working model of the Himalayas at the end of each driveway!  I can generate a lot of refuse in a week, what with all the Cosmic Brownie boxes, empty Diet Pepsi cases, and dirty Q-Tips, but Holy Mother of Colonel Sanders, these folks throw out a lot of shit!  By contrast, I enjoyed the gentle rolling hills and 19th century architecture that seemed to propel me back to the glory days of moonshinin' and banjo-picking on the front porch (how many of you just thought of Ned Beatty?)  For a moment, I even felt like I was driving in the General Lee!

Let’s move ahead two days: I’m on a plane out of Des Moines bound for Newark, NJ to visit a student who will be working at a funeral home in New York.  As the plane approaches the runway, I look to my left and see Lady Liberty thrusting her torch skyward; I see the majestic Manhattan skyline, dominated by the gleaming brilliance of One World Trade Center; I then look to my right and see MetLife Stadium, the hulking monolith of mediocrity inhabited by the New York Jets.  A dichotomy within this tale of dichotomies is New York and New Jersey.  Now I’m not saying New Jersey is a dingy shithole, but New Jersey is kind of a dingy shithole.  Airports are often reflections of the communities they serve and Newark Airport is no different: it, too, is a dingy shithole whose last update was, and I’m only guessing here, completed in 1983.

After beckoning my Uber driver with my nifty Uber app, I’m off to New York City feeling like a trendy Manhattanite with a manageable coke habit.  I see the George Washington Bridge and watch the signs for Yankee Stadium and Queens whiz by my window as my Uber driver offers a captivating description of daily life in the Big Apple.  An hour later, I arrive at a Jewish funeral home in the Bronx.  And there’s Reason #4 why I love my job: I’m at a Secessionist-era funeral home in Kentucky on Tuesday and an Orthodox Jewish mortuary in the Bronx on Thursday.  How’s that for “A Week in the Life”?  As most of you know, when an Orthodox Jew dies, they are often buried in Israel.  The funeral home I visited will routinely respond to a death in the morning and have the deceased on an El-Al Airlines 747 bound for Israel by 6 PM that same day for an overnight flight.  The next morning, a car will meet the flight at the airport in Tel-Aviv and take the deceased directly to the cemetery for burial.  If you want to know more, sign up for my classes!

Now, here I am in gloomy Pittsburgh writing these words and preparing for a journey to Richmond, VA tomorrow morning.  Another week in the life of a mortuary science instructor…

Peace,

Travis