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funerals

I have written enough funerals to qualify as a literary mortician, from a murdered Outlaws biker to the crew of the Challenger. Here are the first few paragraphs of three of them.  I wrote the first in a rather Homeric style because it seemed to suit.

    BIRMINGHAM , ALA. (UPI) - His funeral service filled three churches, the cortege stretched out for three miles and eight strong boys with tear-moist cheeks carried his coffin to the grave under a winter-bare hickory tree.

    Thus did they bury the Bear.

    There was not one soul, it seemed, of the 3,000 at the funeral in Tuscaloosa, among the uncounted thousands who lined the highway to Birmingham, or the crowd of 5,000 who gathered by the grave of Paul W. Bryant who did not believe he was the greatest football coach who ever lived.

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     PATTERSON , CALIF. (UPI) - Through the orchards and field of the valley, Felipe Garza's funeral procession seemed to roll on forever.

     The cortege was so long it might have been they of a prince, but Felipe Garza's only claim to fame was a death, a death so poignant it transfixed the world.

     For in this passing Felipe Garza, the Hispanic son of an out-of-work trucker, gave Donna Ashlock, the Anglo-Saxon daughter of a public servant, the gift rejected lovers have promised since lovers' words were first recorded.

     He gave her his heart.

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     MEMPHIS , Tenn. (UPI) - More than 80,000 mourners, sobbing in anguish and fainting from the heat, pushed and shoved their way to the iron gates of Elvis Presley's mansion Wednesday for a final glimpse of the king of rock 'n' roll.

     Only 20,000 of them succeeded.  

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