Batesville Casket Company, Inc has admitted that cremation over the long haul will take away from burials. This means only one thing, the decline of the Traditional Funeral Industry and the Rise of the Alternative Funeral.

Batesville CEO Joe Rover made this statement in an investor call yesterday.

Looking ahead as cremation replaces burials this means the traditional Funeral industry is in decline and will continue to be in decline.

The lower cost funeral will rise to be mainstream in America.  Funeral directors need to adjust to this now if they are to survive.

THE RISE OF CREMATION & CREMATION TAKING DOWN THE TRADITIONAL FUNERAL WAS ALL PREDICTED IN REST IN PEACE INSIDERS TIPS TO THE LOW COST LESS STRESS FUNERAL-a yourfuneralguy publication.

This scenario does not point to a good future for The parent company and Hillenbrand, Inc’s stock NYSE: HI. It means over the long term that Batesville Casket will have lower Casket Sales.

Funeral Industry| Funeral News|Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy

Batesville Casket Co Revenue down again after the worse year in it's history

Hillenbrand,  Inc NYSE: HI is reporting another revenue decline and openingly stating the loss  is  due to Non Casketed Funerals.With  this after the worse year in it’s history in 2009 the downward spiral of Batesville Casket Company continues.

This  points to the continuous rise of cremation in the United States Of America along with the alternative funeral. Batesville reported a 3%  Loss in Net Revenue.

Batesville products will make for Extra Expenses at Your Funeral

Batesville Casket has launched it’s ObitLink service. With it comes a new source of income for the struggling casket maker, “The Online obituary”  In effect Batesville Casket  has it’s own version of Funeral Packages which are often used by the Funeral Industry through  Funeral Homes to increase your funeral cost. Purchasing a Batesville “Funeral Package” through their online memorial service will raise Consumer Funeral expenses and keep a family’s funeral cost above the  average cost of a funeral.

Batesville has partnered with Legacy.com in this endeavor. Legacy.com handles most of obituaries placed in newspapers in North America by storing the obituaries on the Internet.

This simply an attempt by Hillenbrand(NYSE HI) to raise the consumer Funeral Prices. The Funeral Consumer should not purchase an Online Memorial package or pay for on online Obit. Excellent Free Services are available. This  product comes through the Casket Company’s ConnectivitySuite.

Snippet:

“Online memorialization packages are available for funeral homes to offer to families. These packages offer advanced memorialization options that take full advantage of the latest Web technology, including a memorial website with the ability for visitors to interact through posted comments, pictures, video and music. Families even get a professionally printed and bound book as a keepsake of all of the information shared on their memorial site.- Source Batesville.

Batesville Casket Co Has had to go outside the Casket sale to make money(Increase Revenue).

Funeral Industry|Funeral News|Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy, Funeral Director, Illinois and Virginia

This is Batesville Casket Co third attempt to gain revenue outside the casket sale. 1 First there was the Goria Vault purchase, 2. the K-Tron purchase and now ObitLink.

The fact that Batesville Casket has to go outside the Casket Sale for revenue is an indication of Funeral Industry Decline.

Your Funeral Guy is the#1 Source for Batesville Casket News. There has been More stories at Your Funeral Guy blogs on Batesville Caskets, their financial reports and their expensive caskets  than anywhere else on the Internet or in Newsprint . Here are the top ten recent stories.

Rise in Cremation will Continue

Funeral Industry Decline-Batesville:-Casketed Deaths Down

"Top Ten Batesville Casket Stories"

NYSE:HI Batesville Casket acquires K-Tron International to offset Revenue Decline

BATESVILLE CASKET tests ENTRANCE INTO CEMETERY VAULT INDUSTRY

The 2009 Funeral Event of the Year alerted The World to High Cost Batesville Caskets-Your Funeral Guy

Batesville’s Revenue decline in 09.

NYSE:HI Hillenbrand(Batesville Casket) Non Funeral K-Tron Acquisition under investigation-

Batesville Casket has admitted that the numberof Casketed Deaths in North America is in steady decline.

NYSE(HI) Batesville Assembly Plant of theYear 09 |but where was the Casket Revenue?-YourFuneralGuy

ConnectingDirectors.com chasing Batesville Vaults

Hillenbrand CEO(HI) Set the  Stage For Company’s 09 Revenue Decline-YourFuneralGuy

The main lesson for the Funeral Consumer is “Avoid a Batesville Casket if you want to Come in under the average cost of a Funeral” or average funeral cost.-This is the opinion of Your Funeral Guy.

You do not Need a  Michael Jackson Golden Casket or any of their high end products.

Funeral Industry|Funeral blog by Your Funeral Guy, Funeral Director, Illonois and Virginia.

One way Funeral Directors ad to the cost of a Funeral|Cremation is get you to buy a Cremation Casket

Batesville Casket Truck Picture

pecanpieguy’s photostream //
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Batesville Casket has admitted that the numberof Casketed Deaths in North America is in steady decline.

The holding company for Batesville Casket has admitted that the number of Casketed deaths in the USA is down. This is an indication that the traditional funeral biz is in steady decline. Hillenbrand Inc( NYSE :HI),  the Batesville parent said this in a statement to regulators.

In a presentation on a conference call Tuesday Hillenbrand CEO Kenneth Camp was critical of K-Tron management .K-Tron  is the  the plastics company purchased by the Coffin Giant. Camp said that K-tron had” limited lean experience.”

But Bateville (Hillenbrand Inc.) with all their lean cost cutting measures were not able to stop a signidicant revenue decline in 2009. Kamp and his lean Batesville Manufacturing Machine struck out in 09-Yest the Mighty Batesvllle did strike out.  Many times the wiser course is to keep one’s mouth shut,

In a slight understatement, Hillenbrand’s Camp allowed that K-Tron’s products are quite different from Batesville Caskets’, but said, “We are both manufacturing companies that share similar processes and core operational values.” In slides presented in a conference call to investors, he indicated that K-Tron had “limited lean experience,” referring to lean manufacturing, and predicted that “meaningful improvement opportunities exist through the application of lean business practices.” But he also highlighted K-Tron’s experienced management team, its positive financial standing, and its international footprint as strong points.

via www.plasticstoday.com

The bottom line of what has happened in this transation is that Bates ville has gone outside the Casket Sale to increase revenue.

Funeral Industry|Funeral News Blog by Your Funeral Guy

Batesville truck pic fron flickr under the creative commons license from

pecanpieguy’s photostream //
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It seems that Hillenbrand (parent company of Batesville Casket), is on a buying spree. With recent acquisitions of the intellectual property for the burial vault portion of Goria Corporation, Hillenbrand is now adding K- Tron International to the list. The two companies announced the acquisition this morning.

Hillenbrand, Inc. (NYSE: HI) and K-Tron International, Inc. (Nasdaq: KTII) have signed a definitive merger agreement providing for Hillenbrand’s acquisition of K-Tron for $150 per share in cash. This price represents a 32.1 percent premium over the closing price of K-Tron’s stock on January 8, 2010, and a 38.6 percent premium over the 20-day average closing stock price. The boards of directors of both companies have unanimously approved the merger agreement. The directors and officers of K-Tron holding approximately 10 percent of K-Tron’s outstanding common stock in the aggregate have agreed to vote their shares in favor of the transaction. The transaction will have an aggregate purchase price of approximately $435 million. Adjusted for K-Tron debt and cash on hand at October 3, 2009, the estimated net purchase price of the deal is approximately $390 million. The final net purchase price will be calculated based upon the K-Tron balance sheet at the date of close.

Read More

ConnectingDirectors.com

A Hillenbrand- Batesville Casket-non funeral acquisition is under investigation

NYSE:HI “Hillenbrand” AKA Batesville Casket  acquisition of K-Tron is already under investigation. It seems that some think that the K-Tron shareholders were taken advantage of because there was no investigation of other buyers.

Hillenbrand Inc had declining revenue sales in 2009. In order to put an end to revenue  losses the World’s largest Casket Manufacturer has gone outside the casket sale to increase revenue.

Hillenbrand purchased the rights to Goria  Burial Vaults. near the end of 2009 and announced the K-Tron Purchase in early 2010. But as in any Corporate funeral business deal, there is shadiness in the grey areas. In this case an investigation was revealed within a  day after  the announced acquisition.

Snippet:

The law firm of Harwood Feffer LLP is investigating possible breaches of fiduciary duty by the Board of Directors of K-Tron (“K-Tron”) (NYSE:KTII) arising out of the proposed acquisition of K-Tron by Hillenbrand, Inc. (“Hillenbrand”) (NYSE:HI).

On Monday, January 11, 2010, K-Tron announced it had agreed to be acquired by Hillenbrand. The transaction will have an aggregate purchase price of approximately $435 million…..

However, K-Tron may not have adequately shopped itself around before entering into this transaction and, pursuant to this proposed transaction, Hillenbrand may be underpaying for K-Tron, thus unlawfully harming K-Tron shareholders.via www.globenewswire.com

Funeral industry| Funeral News  |Funeral blog by Your Funeral Guy

This is an illustration as to why dealings with corporate funeral homes should be avoided.

(HI)Hillenbrand, Inc the  parent company of Batesville Casket has been put on a Moody’s credit rating  down grade watch.

The reason  stated by Moody’s is that the company has purchased a company outside it’s signature death care  industry.

Funeral Industry|Funeral News|Funeral blog by Your Funeral  Guy.

This is all the more reason for the consumer to avoid High end Batesville Caskets.

http://ir.hillenbrandinc.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=436585

Image of Michael Jackson Golden Casket a Hillenbrand Batesville Casket costin over $25,000.00

Hillenbrand Inc (NYSE:HI)the parent company of Batesville Casket has gone outside the Funeral Industry to offset Revenue decline on Casket Sales in the Traditional Funeral Business. Today Hillenbrand  Inc, announced the purchase K-Tron International, a company that operates outside the Funeral Industry.

Batesville the World's leading Casket Maker has had steep revenue decline

This is a further indication of traditional Funeral Industry failure. The leading casket maker in the world  losing revenue fast goes outside “THE CASKET SALE” and THE FUNERAL INDUSTRY to  increase revenue.

This  sale presents  stern warning to Funeral Homes, Funeral Directors, and those entering the Funeral Industry:  eliminate overhead, embrace discounts and sell the lower cost funeral.

About K-Tron International, Inc.

K-Tron (www.ktroninternational.com) is a recognized leader in the design, production, marketing and servicing of material handling equipment and systems. The company serves many different industrial markets through two separate business lines. The Process Group focuses primarily on feeding and pneumatic conveying equipment, doing business under two main brands: K-Tron Feeders and K-Tron Premier….

Some Highlights:

- Hillenbrand expands and diversifies its business portfolio for long-term revenue and earnings growth.

- Batesville Casket and K-Tron will operate as separate business units.-From the Hillenbrand website

-

Funeral industry| Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy

Batesville Casket Truck picyure from flickr under the creative commons license  from

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The recession made 2009 the year of the Lower cost Funeral and Lower Cost Casket

The CEO of Batesville Casket Company parent Hillenbrand Inc(HI) set  the stage for funeral revenue decline at Batesville. IN a comment made on an Investor call Kenneth Camp stated.

Just finished this book.  I highly recommend this book.  It is non-fiction, but it is well-written as a novel.  I read the first part of the book earlier, took a hiatus and started playing games, then I finished.  However, it is all good.  You could not write a non-fictional book with such a compelling story.  All characters were nobodies that rose to stardom.  Many sports movies and books carry the same story with the underdog winning, then something happens and the underdog cannot will for a while, then comes back.  However, it is more compelling with a true story.

The owner of the ranch on which Seabiscuit became a star went to California with very little cash in the beginning.  He started working at a bicycle repair shop.  When the first of the cars, he started repairing those.  Then he worked up to a major executive at Ford Motors, and then decided to go into the horse racing business.

The rider came from Ireland with little funds as well.  He make money as a boxer.  Then very disrespected “bug boy” (young rider) trying to make it big in very small rings where fouling was the only way to win.

I could talk about the trainer and the horse itself.  Both were unknowns as well.

Anyway, there are some hard parts in the book such as talking about “reducing.”  Riders think up of many different methods of reducing weight.  Most are fairly disastrous to the rider’s health.  For each race, each horse is assigned a weight that they must carry.  These are 100 to about 133!  The better the horse is, the more weight s/he carries.  There is also quite a bit on the injuries and deaths that the sport generates in that time.

The author did a very good job researching for the book.  To the best of my knowledge, she did not guess (that much) on the personalities of the characters.  A great deal of research is required to know personalities.  The acknowledgments blew me away.  There was a similar effect on me from the “Wild Beauty” book.  There is so much giving of time from several different people.  It would be so much harder if Seabiscuit was not as widely popular.  (Then again, there wouldn’t be that much point for the book if that were the case.)

The author humored me in the first of the acknowledgments.  Apparently she found out some information about one of the characters in a pornographic magazine that was supposed to be scientific.  She was able to verify the information in the magazine with other sources.  I guess her point was that when you’re researching, valuable information can show up in very unlikely places.

So my recommendation is “read this book.”

There is no doubt about it. Because of the recession people have opted for lower cost funeral options. The revenue numbers for the year are down for the the major funeral corporations SCI (Service Corporation International) STEI (Stewart Enterprises) and HI(Batesville Casket  AKA) Hillenbrand, inc.)

Cremations are on the rise across the land. People are not  just shopping around for a funeral, they are opting for lower costs.

Batesville, the company that made Michael Jackson Golden Casket lost over 29 million in revenue this year compared to last

Batesville Casket(Hillenbrand)(HI) 4th quarter results are in and according to the Business Courier of Cincininati. “Hillenbrand sees lower sales in 4Q, stock drops“

Although profits are up for the year, the stock fell Tuesday on 4th quarter announcement. This is bad news for the funeral industry.It is the Business Courier’s Judgement that  Investors are losing faith in Hillenbrand. The company is also the maker of The Michael Jackson Golden Casket. It is the authors opinion that Batesville has shown dismal numbers all year.

Snippet from the Business Courier of Cincininati.

For fiscal 2009, Hillenbrand posted net income of $102.3 million, or $1.66 per share, versus $93.2 million, or $1.49 per share in fiscal 2008. Revenues declined to $649.1 million from $678.1 million.

IT IS MY OPINION THAT A 29 million dollar decline from the World’s Largest Casket Maker is a sure indication of traditional funeral industry decline and the rise of cremation.

Funeral Industry|Funeral blog by Your Funeral Guy

Michael Jackson Golden Casket Pic From Flickr under the creative commons license from

DianthusMoon’s photostream

Batesville Casket Company in decline

The net income for the Batesville Casket Company is down in the third quarter of 2009. Hillenbrand Inc.’s (HI)Net Income is down 4.9%. Net revenues fell to $158.7 million from $165 million. But more significantly for the first 9 months of 2009 (Fiscal year)there is a huge loss.  In the First (3Qs {of (fiscal)2009} Revenues dropped to $496 million from $519.3 million.

The WSJ quoting Hillenbrand Inc.’s Chief Executive  Kenneth Camp.

“This recession has affected every part of the American economy, and for the first time, it’s also affected our industry,”He added that the results also pointed to consumers’ spending cutbacks affecting their funeral-purchase decisions.

Snippet From RTT:

Revenue came down to $496.0 million from $519.3 million in the same period (9 month) last year.

Funeral Industry Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy

NYSE: HI is headquartered in Batesville, Indiana

Relentless low-pitched noise rumbles throughout the 300,000 square foot factory, ricocheting off the concrete floors and corrugated metal walls. The sounds of electronic beeps and shrill bells are punctuated by intermittent drilling—similar to what you hear in the pits at the Indy 500. My 62-year-old mother and I survey the assembly line of finished metal caskets as second-shift workers add finishing touches that resemble pin striping to the shiny façades. A hydrolic lift loads the coffins onto awaiting trucks—famous white and green trailers with the friendly warning on the back: “Drive Safe. Heaven Can Wait.” A model known as The Primrose model sails by on the line. “Our bestseller,” says Mark Lanning proudly, vice president of investor relations at Batesville Casket Factory in rural Batesville, Indiana—casket capital of the United States. Retailing at about $3,000, The Primrose gleams bright white beneath fluorescent lights. Featuring enamel plates decorated with delicate pink roses fixed to the corners and more roses machine-stitched on the white padded interior, The Primrose makes a perfect resting place for a beloved grandmother or schoolteacher.

Workers prepare caskets for paint

All three of us wear large plastic safety glasses, which I keep pushing up on my head (a blatant disregard for safety). Lanning informs us that the factory cranks out a fresh casket every 58 seconds.

“It’s kinda similar to auto production,” says Lanning, watching the men and women, in t-shirts and jeans, dust off the finished caskets with a towel. “Like producing a mini version of a car with no motor or wheels.”

Final inspection

Dressed like a state assemblyman in a grey slacks, white shirt and a tie, every grey hair in place, Lanning is serious about his product. He has worked at Batesville Casket Company for 20 years, and he discusses the features of the Batesville casket with the kind of single-mindedness found in a successful door-to-door salesman. One of those features is the patented Memory-Safe Drawer, a little drawer inside the coffin where you can store personal affects like photos or letters, “instead of just throwing them in the casket.” There is no trace of irony to this man. Raking in $678 million last year, Batesville Casket Company is serious business.

Sandwiched between Indianapolis and Cincinnati in Southeastern Indiana, Batesville has a population of roughly 6,000; slightly less than half of these folks work at the casket company, an industry that has supported this green, hilly town for the last century. Settled by Roman Catholic German immigrants, Batesville residents are proud of their heritage. Local eateries serve German specialties like wiener schnitzel and bratwurst and white stone statues of Mary stand in modest, well-manicured yards. Batesville’s most famous family, The Hillenbrands, are the Rockefellers of Batesville, and streets and public buildings are named in their honor. John Hillenbrand, a German immigrant, first began making hardwood caskets in 1861. His son, John A. Hillenbrand, a true captain of industry, purchased the failing Batesville coffin company1906, renamed it Batesville Casket Company, and built a thriving business. The Hillenbrands ran the company for four generations until August “Gus” Hillenbrand stepped down in 2006. Hillenbrand, Inc. branched out into hospital bed production in 1927 under a division called Hill-Rom, and today you’ll find Hill-Rom beds in nearly every hospital in America. Whether caskets or hospital beds, you know you got problems if you require a Hillenbrand product.

Batesville's first family: The Hillenbrands

With roughly 45 percent of the market share nationwide, Batesville Casket Company is the Walmart of death care. Batesville Casket Company operates three other factories: two in Tennessee and one in Chihuahua, Mexico, but the headquarters in Batesville, Indiana, that produces metal caskets, remains the largest.  More popular than wood due to their lower price, Metal caskets make up about 60% of the caskets sold in the United States.

Mom asks Lanning if employees get a free coffin as part of their benefits package. He informs us for the second time today that Batesville Casket Company does not sell directly from the factory. For the first time today I ask why. “You don’t just go buy your product and have your own funeral,” he says. “The only person that can conduct a funeral and handle a body is a licensed funeral director.” Batesville only sells its products through licensed funeral homes.

There’s something appealing about the mechanical orderliness and sheer productivity of a factory (in the time it takes for me to take a shower, the workers at Batesville Casket Company have produced fifteen caskets!). I’ve admired factories ever since childhood when I watched Mr. Rogers and his field trips to the suitcase factory and printing plant—the smooth systems of conveyor belts hypnotized my young eyes, and each finished, quality-tested product served as a sturdy example of human achievement. Mom admits sadly that she never visited her father at the U.S. Steel mills in Gary, Indiana where he worked his whole life. My grandfather, son of Polish immigrants, was working at the mill the day I was born, and decided to sneak off for a catnap in the utility closet (he was already in his mid-sixties at this time).  My grandfather once told me how his supervisor went searching for him when my grandmother called the plant to tell him I had been born. His supervisor found him asleep on the job, kicked him in the legs, and told him he was in big trouble. But grandpa didn’t care when he heard the news of my safe, healthy birth.

After the casket factory, we head to a famed Batesville establishment, The Sherman House, a German restaurant and Inn established in 1852. At 5 p.m. on a Thursday, the empty streets of downtown Batesville give the city a eerie feel—like a dusty set from Stephen King’s Children of the Corn; the old-fashioned movie theater and quaint diner advertising homemade pies are closed. You can almost see the tumbleweeds rolling by. The Sherman House, huge and sprawling, with large banquet halls for weddings and conferences, is also bereft of clientele. With it’s exposed wood beams and stained glass, the interior was designed to look like a rustic German cottage, at least according to the designer charged with the task of reproducing German kitsch in 1975. It needs an update. Countless wooden chairs with brown leather cushions are scattered around heavy wooden tables; the pink and grey paisley carpet is worn from years of company dinners on the Batesville Casket tab. Our attentive, middle-aged waitress, brings us complementary fried biscuits with apple butter, an Indiana favorite. I’m disappointed to discover there’s only one German beer on the menu—Warsteiner, the classic wheat beer available pretty much everywhere. I order one and mom gets hot tea as usual.

The Sherman House, restaurant and inn

Our meal, entitled “German Fare,” is a little sampling of everything: wiener schnitzel, sausage, and sauerbraten. Served lukewarm, each item is very brown and mushy, and indistinguishable from the other. “No offense to Batesville,” mom says. “But this is not a vacation, it’s more like a sentencing. Let’s hit the road.”

As we head home on 74 West to Indianapolis, I switch on a light rock station.  My mom, who always insists on driving, also insists that I check her blind spots before she changes lanes, meaning that if we crash into another car, it’s probably my fault. “Straight From the Heart” by Bryan Adams comes on the radio and I sing along.

“Who’s this?” mom asks.

Despite having been married to my father who sang in a rock band for ten years and raising two music-obsessed kids, my mom never ever knows who’s singing.  She loves to tell the story about how she rode in a New York City elevator once with the Rolling Stones in 1965, right after the release of “Satisfaction,” and had no idea who they were. My 18-year-old mom and her seven girl friends, who called themselves The Great Eight were visiting NYC for the first time, According to mom, Mick Jagger told them that they were the Rolling Stones. My mother answered, “We’re the Great Eight.” The story always makes me cringe because somehow I know that’s exactly what my mother, born and raised in Gary, Indiana, daughter of a U.S. Steel worker and one of seven children, said to Mick. She really didn’t give a shit who he was and she’s never been afraid of anyone.

I decide to give mom some more clues as to the author of “Straight from the Heart.” “You know this one, mom. You took me to see him in concert in fourth grade. He’s Canadian,” I offer

She thinks long and hard. “Hmmm…is it quick hand, I mean, fast hand?”

I roll my eyes. “You mean slow hand, and this is not Eric Clapton. It’s Bryan Adams,” I say.

“He’s Canadian?” she adds.

Mom and I start laughing hysterically.  I can barely breathe.  As we pull into our garage in Carmel, Indiana, we continue to giggle with the motor running and the garage door shut behind us.

“Hey mom,” I say.  “Let’s turn off the car.”

“Good idea,” she says, tears from laughter pouring out of her eyes. “Suicide. How’s that for an ending to our day at the casket factory.”

Batesville Casket Had a 17.1% decline in net income, a bad sign for the funeral business.

The largest casket maker in the United States has posted a 17.1% decline in net income in their 2nd Quarter of 2009. This is another indication of  more decline in the funeral business. (Numbers here do not include litigation costs and spin off adjustments)

Hillenbrand Inc- Batesville Casket Co.

“Kenneth Camp, president and chief executive officer of Hillenbrand, Inc said, “The funeral services industry has experienced a decline in burials that is largely consistent with a mild influenza and pneumonia season, combined with an increase in cremations that may be more pronounced in the current economic environment. There also has been more intense competition in both the casket and cremation businesses.-(rttnews.com)

Excluding costs, net income was $28.6 million, down 17.1% from $34.5 million in the prior yearquarter.-(rttnews.com)

Batesville casket  did post a profit due to the reduction of operations-but operations cannot be reduced forever. A 17.1 decline in net income paints a steep decline in the casket end of the US  funeral industry. Not only was  there more cremation and  less burial , there was a significant  threat to the US funeral industry in the rise of high quality Chinese Casket imports.

That is  part of the rise in more intense competition.

Funeral Industry|Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy.

Source(rttnews.com)

post updated at 12:54 Am on May13th 2009 due to inaccurate info fron 1st source.( revenue decline was 10.8% not 22%)

Monday, May 4, 2009

Several years back, a good friend recommended Laura Hillenbrand’s compelling book, Seabiscuit, An American Legend.   She said that I would enjoy the author’s work as much as I would the story.  She was right on both counts. 

The story kept me engaged from beginning to end.  Hillenbrand’s style kept me there.  Leslie Green was spot on.  Hillenbrand’s prose inspires me.

It also introduced me to the world of thoroughbred horses.

According to my strict religious upbringing, dancing, drinking, smoking, profane language, movie going and gambling were all lumped together as out-of-bounds for us true believers.  As we advanced from adolescence to adulthood, one of the real challenges for us moderate-to-progressive believers with advanced academic degrees was to remain true to our roots while at the same time ignoring or even violating a bunch of those old prohibitions.  This abandonment required a refined capacity for rationalization backed up by a complex biblical hermeneutic; but we managed to make the case – to the horror of grandparents everywhere.  Many of my fellow believers have become wine connoisseurs, aficionados of microbreweries and fine Cuban cigars, die-hard fans of Dancing with the Stars and quite capable film critics.  Some salt and pepper their speech with one time prohibited vocabulary.  Perhaps deprivation enhances curiosity and then ultimately – indulgence.  All things in moderation, of course.

But gambling.  I never could get over than one.  Las Vegas always made me feel like I was walking the streets of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Casinos still trigger flashes of guilt and shame and holy trepidation.  It’s built in.  A conditioned response.   A hailstorm of fire and brimstone are the inevitable outcome for visiting such places.  It’s the way I was raised.

The racetrack is in that category.  You know, gambling.  So, I wouldn’t know much about the track at all except for the story of Seabiscuit; Red Pollard (jockey) and Tom Smith (trainer) and Charles Howard (owner).  As Hillenbrand’s story unfolds in the depths of the Great Depression, jockey, trainer, owner and horse come together and bring out the best in each other – reawakening and reviving broken careers.  They inspire a nation – and a full-length feature film.

And maybe because of Seabiscuit, thanks to the technology of DVR, I can’t help myself.  In spite of that upbringing, I check in to the Kentucky Derby every year.  I’m quite certain my grandfather would disapprove, but what a spectacle. 

It is an irresistible occasion for opulence – conspicuous consumption on a grand scale, right in there with Oscar night – a coming out party for the super wealthy.  The dress code is Scarlet O’Hara meets Tom Wolfe.  The hats.  The colorful blooms.  The celebrity interviews.  The Twin Spires.  A cool mint julep.  The deep green lawns and English country gardens – roses, calla lilies, carnations, Gerbera daisies, and tulips.  Of every variety and color.  Did I mention the hats?  Wow!  The sort a woman might wear to Buckingham Palace for a springtime lawn party.

Lerner and Lowe nailed it in My Fair Lady  - opening day at Ascot –

So who would have imagined the script that played out in this year’s Kentucky Derby?  Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum of Dubai flew in two of his horses on one of his corporate jets.  He declared his determination to win the American classic, no matter what it takes.  And he’s got all the money he needs to make it happen.  He has poured untold millions into his pursuit of the Kentucky prize.  But neither of his champions, Regal Ransom or Desert Party, both potential winners, delivered.  The prosperous Sheik has yet to attain that coveted visit to the winner’s circle.  Without a doubt, he’ll try again.

This year, the surprise winner was a dark horse, brought to the event in a trailer pulled behind a pick up truck for twenty-one hours all the way from New Mexico.  His owners purchased Mine that Bird for a paltry $9,500 and celebrated only one thing: they qualified to show in the famed Derby.  Co-owners Allan and Blach hired an unlikely quarter horse trainer – Bennie Woolley – a former rodeo rider.  Two months ago, he suffered a broken leg while riding a motorcycle.  So when he chased his winning horse into the winner’s circle in stunned disbelief, wearing a broad brimmed black silver studded cowboy hat and blue jeans, he hobbled on crutches.

Just before, on the track, Jockey Calvin Borel held back in last place up until the final quarter of the race.  Then, he cut Mine that Bird loose.  The re-play shot from the aerial view from the blimp that floated overhead tells the stunning story.  The unlikely thoroughbred sprinted his way on the inside bolting past some of the most expensive horses in the history of the event.  Several trained by Hall of Famers.  Two more flown in from Dubai.  A couple of sentimental favorites.  No one imagined Mine that Bird had a chance.  Fewer placed bets on his number.  The odds were fifty-to-one.

But off he went, like a sprinter out of a slingshot.  Like a fighter jet launched off the deck.  It was more than a gallop.  He soared.  Along the rail, he cut inside through an opening no wider than his rib cage.  And then out in the open.  He pulled away.  The raucous cheering for the favorites in the packed house dampened into a shocked dull “huh?”  Who is that horse?  What’s his name?  Where did he come from?  Can this be happening?  From under the broad, flowered hats women in sundresses frowned.  Men in colorful suits and starched collars staggered back in bewildered disbelief.

As Borel crossed the finish line he stood up in the stirrups a record breaking six-and-three-quarters lengths ahead of the second place horse, pointed heavenward and screamed in delirious delight.  A network reporter pulled up on horseback and put her remote microphone up to the winning jockey’s face and caught the unbridled celebration for all to hear.  Calvin Borel, who has already won one Derby, never imagined a second trip to the winner’s circle.  Certainly not on this horse.  Looking toward the gray Kentucky skies, the jockey who finished his schooling with the eighth grade hooted and hollered and cried, “Mom and Dad – I wish so much that you were here to see this!”

And out of the gloom of a sloppy, rainy post-crash afternoon in the Spring of 2009, in a sport forbidden by my childhood preachers and Sunday school teachers, I saw it with my own eyes in high definition: broken down trainers can try again. 

The dark horse can be the winning horse.

Money is no guarantee of success.

The winner’s circle is not for sale.

The race is only over for those who stop running.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp 2009

Warum gibt es bloß immer wieder Menschen, die eine wirkungsvolle Aussage wieder relativieren?  So wie Klaus Hillenbrand von der taz. “Wir wollten weder den Trainer noch die religiösen Gefühle der Leser verletzen”, sagte  Hillenbrand zu der taz-Karikatur, die Trainer Jürgen Klinsmann vom FC Bayern München am Kreuz zeigt.  Mit ihrer Klinsmann-Karikatur lag die taz durchaus richtg, mit ihren Rücksichtnahme auf etwaige “religiöse Gefühle” liegt sie jedenfalls falsch. Christen haben in Sachen Sarkasmus keinen Recht auf einen Schonbezirk.

Batesville Casket served up a low cost funeral tip. Hillenbrand  the owner of Batesville Casket Co. issued a positive statement on in it’s 1Q earnings. the tip is good for funeral directors, The numbers are not all that important  but the principle is:

They cut costs and showed a profit.

Funeral Home owners cut frills.

Example:D do not take the Funeral cadilac home at night. Drive your personal lower cost vehicle to and from work.

Funeral Consumer

Be  up front. When you walk in the door to the funeral  home say you can have my business if you negotiate lower funeral costs. Funeral home owners need your business these days. It’s the economy.

Funeral Cost/Funeral Industry Blog by Your funeral guy.

Hemingwaywantabes, never forget that competent authors are superb storytellers. While reading the classics, note how the canonized authors weave a story. Whether the choice is fiction or non-fiction, the story must be clear, have a good beginning, middle, and end, and never be boring. Reading well-written books helps you realize how others have accomplished the feat. In On Writing, Stephen King states:

Good writing . . . teaches the learning writer about style, graceful narration, plot development, the creation of believable characters, and truth-telling. A novel like Grapes of Wrath may fill a new writer with feelings of despair and good, old-fashioned jealousy—I’ll never be able to write anything that good, not if I live to be a thousand—but such feelings can also serve as a spur, goading the writer to work harder and aim higher. Being swept away by a combination of great story and great writing . . . is a part of every writer’s necessary formation. You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

In Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott, the author presents an interesting strategy regarding fiction storytelling. Lamott quotes Alice Adams from a lecture about short story writing. The excerpt reads:

[Alice] said that sometimes she uses a formula when writing a short story which goes ABDCE, for Action, Background, Development, Climax, and Ending. You begin with action that is compelling enough to draw us in, make us want to know more. Background is where you let us see and know whom these people are, how they’ve come to be together, what was going on before the opening of the story. Then you develop these people, so that we learn what they care most about. The plot – the drama, the actions, the tension – will grow out of that. You move them along until everything comes together in the climax, after which things are different for the main characters, different in some real way. And then there is the ending: what is our sense of who these people are now, what they are left with, what happened, and what did it mean.

Fiction writers can learn from Scott Turow, author of several bestsellers, including Presumed Innocent. An excerpt reads:

The atomized life of the restaurant spins on about us. At separate tables, couples talk; the late-shift workers dine alone; the waitresses pour coffee. And here sits Rusty Sabich, thirty-nine years old, full of lifelong burdens and workaday fatigue. I tell my son to drink his milk. I nibble at my burger. Three feet away is the woman whom I have said I’ve loved for nearly twenty years, making her best efforts to ignore me.

Besides being a terrific storyteller, character description was Jack Kerouac’s specialty. An excerpt of On The Road reads:

He was a gray, nondescript-looking fellow you wouldn’t notice on the street, unless you looked closer and saw his mad, bony skull with its strange youthfulness – a Kansas minister with exotic, phenomenal fires and mysteries. He had studied medicine in Vienna; had studied anthropology, read everything; and now he was settling to his life’s work, which was the study of things themselves in the streets of life and the night.

In Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, author Dai Sijie sweeps the reader into his novel portraying life during China’s Cultural Revolution. An excerpt reads:

The room served as shop, workplace, and dining room all at once. The floorboards were grimy and streaked with yellow-and-black gobs of dried spittle left by clients. You could tell they were not washed down daily. There were hangers with finished garments suspended on a string across the middle of the room. The corners were piled high with bolts of material and folded clothes, which were under siege from an army of ants.

Providing a good beginning, middle, and end to a story by doing so with each paragraph provides excellent storytelling. In Down and Out In London and Paris, George Orwell presents a worthy example. The excerpt reads:

The Jew delivered the cocaine the same day, and promptly vanished. And meanwhile, as was not surprising after the fuss Roucolle had made, the affair had been noised all over the quarter. The very next morning the hotel was raided and searched by the police.

While Woody Allen may be better known for his comedic films, one of his books, Without Feathers, is a classic. A short stories he weaves is called The Whore Of Mensa, a great “what-if” detailing one man’s search for intellectual companionship instead of the usual sexual gratification. An excerpt reads:

One thing about being a private investigator, you’ve got to learn to go with your hunches. That’s why when a quivering pat of butter named Word Babcock walked into my office and laid his cards on the table, I should have trusted the cold chill that shot up my spine.

“Kaiser,” he said. “Kaiser Lupowitz?”

“That’s what it says on my license,” I owned up.

“You’ve got to help me. I’m being blackmailed. Please.”

He was shaking like the lead singer in a rumba band. I pushed a glass across the desktop and a bottle of rye I keep handy for non-medicinal purposes.

“Suppose you relax and tell me all about it.”

In the non-fiction bestseller Seabiscuit, author Laura Hillenbrand captures the reader’s attention by providing visual and dramatic scenes propelling the reader into the middle of the action. An excerpt reads:

A minute later the field bent around the far turn and rushed at the grandstand. There was one horse in front and pouring it on. His silks were red. It was Seabiscuit. The crowd roared. Pollard [the jockey] and Seabiscuit glided down the lane all by themselves, reaching the wire in track-record-equaling time. Kayak was right behind them. It was Pollard’s first win since 1938.

Storytelling – the key to any good writing. Tell a good story and readers will come.

Nee – das muss EIN Corona heißen. Magazin nämlich. Da ihr bestimmt die Folge vom 18.06. verpasst habt und da in zwei Wochen nochmal eine Ausgabe erscheint – die ihr dann bestimmt nicht mehr verpaßt weil ihr das Magazin abonniert habt, gelle? – hier mal der Link zur Webseite.

by Laura Hillenbrand (performed by Richard M. Davidson; Recorded Books 2001)

When I was a horsy kid growing up in New Jersey, I knew all about Seabiscuit, Man o’ War, War Admiral and other famous racehorses, but the details had faded by the time I reached adulthood.  I first read Seabiscuit a few years ago when it was first published, and I read articles about Laura Hillenbrand’s struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome.  I saw the movie, and recently listened to the audio book. It seems I can’t get enough of it!

I was kind of amazed at first how this story of a horse appealed to so many people, but when I read it, I understood: this is not just the story of a horse.  It is a story of an era (the 1930s), and it is the story of three amazing human beings: owner Charles S. Howard, who started out as a bicycle mechanic and became a car mogul; trainer Tom Smith, who disliked people but loved and understood horses; and jockey Red Pollard, who did not understand the word “quit”.  How Howard, Smith and Pollard worked together to turn around the career of this most unusual little horse to make him the 1930s equivalent of a rock star makes a fascinating read.  As good as the movie was, there is no substitute for reading (or listening to) this wonderful book.