When (& if) I die, I don’t want a conventional
funeral, with everyone being sad.
Instead, I want fireworks to celebrate my life! I told my husband & he said fireworks weren’t
his thing. I said they were MY
thing. He offered a compromise—he said
he would stick a sparkler in my behind.
Somehow, I don’t feel that would be the same thing. What do you think?
This list would not be complete without the Darwin Awards - awarded every year to the persons who died in the stupidest manner, thereby removing themselves from the gene pool. One year's (I don't know which year but it doesn't matter) nine Darwin Award Nominees were:

These Darwin Awards winners know how to go out in style:
This list would not be complete without the Darwin Awards - awarded every year to the persons who died in the stupidest manner, thereby removing themselves from the gene pool. One year's (I don't know which year but it doesn't matter) nine Darwin Award Nominees were:
Nominee No. 1 [San Jose Mercury News]: An unidentified man,
using a shotgun like a club to break a former girlfriend's windshield,
accidentally shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing a hole in
his gut.
Nominee No. 2 [Kalamazoo Gazette]: James Burns, 34, (a mechanic)
of Alamo, MI, was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police
describe as a "farm-type truck." Burns got a friend to drive the
truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the
source of a troubling noise.. Burns' clothes caught on something, however, and
the other man found Burns "wrapped in the drive shaft."
Nominee No. 3 [Hickory Daily Record]: Ken Charles Barger, 47,
accidentally shot himself to death in December in Newton, NC. Awakening to the
sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but
grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson 38 Special, which discharged when he drew
it to his ear. (For whatever reason, residents of Southern states always seem
to figure prominently among the Darwin nominees.)
Nominee No. 4 [UPI, Toronto]: Police said a lawyer demonstrating
the safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane
with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police spokesman said
Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower early
Friday evening as he was explaining the strength of the building's windows to
visiting law students. Hoy previously has conducted demonstrations of window
strength according to police reports. Peter Lawson, managing partner of the
firm Holden Day, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was "one of the
best and brightest" members of the 200-man association.. (Nice to see
another Canadian province getting into the awards.... The Maritimes always have
been heavily involved.)
Nominee No. 5 [Bloomberg News Service]: A terrible diet and a
room with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed
by his own gas emissions. There were no marks on his body, and an autopsy
showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted
primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple of other things). It was just the
right combination of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep from
breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been
outside or had his windows been opened, it wouldn't have been fatal. But the
man was shut up in his nearly airtight bedroom. According to the article,
"He was a big man with a huge capacity for creating "this deadly
gas." Three of the rescuers got sick, and one was hospitalized.
Nominee No. 6 [The News of the Weird]: Michael Anderson Godwin
made News of the Weird posthumously. He had spent several years awaiting South
Carolina's electric chair on a murder conviction before having his sentence
reduced to life in prison. While sitting on a metal toilet in his cell
attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire and was electrocuted.
(North Carolina entrants are always perennial favorites.)
Nominee No. 7 [The Indianapolis Star]: A cigarette lighter may
have triggered a fatal explosion in Dunkirk, IN. A Jay County man, using a
cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzle loader, was killed Monday
night when the weapon discharged in his face, sheriff's investigators said.
Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his parents' rural Dunkirk home at about 11:30
PM. Investigators said Pryor was cleaning a 54-caliber muzzle
loader that had not been firing properly. He was using the lighter to look
into the barrel when the gunpowder ignited.
Nominee No. 8 [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]: A man cleaning a
bird feeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment in this Toronto suburb
slipped and fell 23 stories to his death. Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a
wheeled chair when the accident occurred, said Inspector D'Arcy Honer of the
Peel Regional Police. "It appears that the chair moved, and he went over
the balcony," Honer said. (Another Ontario entry... I wonder if people are
moving there from the Maritime Provinces.)
Finally, THE WINNER! [North Carolina Democrat Gazette]: Two
local men were injured when their pickup truck left the road and struck a tree
near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early Monday. Woodruff County deputy
Dovey Snyder reported the accident shortly after midnight Monday. Thurston
Poole, 33, of Des Arc, and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock, were returning
to Des Arc after a "frog gigging trip" on an overcast Sunday night
when Poole's pickup truck headlights malfunctioned. The two men concluded that
the headlight fuse on the older-model truck had burned out. As a replacement
fuse was not avail able, Wallis noticed that the .22 caliber bullet from his
pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering-wheel column. Upon
inserting the bullet the headlights again began to operate properly, and the
two men proceeded on eastbound toward the White River Bridge. After traveling
approximately 20 miles, and just before crossing the river, the bullet
apparently overheated, discharged, and struck Poole in the testicles. The
vehicle swerved sharply right, exiting the pavement, and striking a tree. Poole
suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident, but will require
extensive surgery to repair the damage to his testicles, which will never
operate as intended.
Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and
released.. "Thank God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his
balls off, or we might both be dead," stated Wallis. "I've been a
trooper for 10 years in this part of the world, but this is a first for me. I
can't believe that those two would admit how this accident happened," said
Snyder. Upon being notified of the wreck, Lavinia (Poole's wife) asked how many
frogs the boys had caught and did anyone get them from the truck?
(Though Poole and Wallis did not die as a
result of their misadventure as normally required by Darwin Award Official
Rules, it can be argued that Poole DID, in fact, effectively remove himself
from the gene pool.)
