(In case you can't see it, it says
"drive thru viewing 6-8 p.m.)   

Peggy Scott Adams married into a family business that is quite unusual, a drive-thru funeral home.  She said the Adams Mortuary (are you hearing the Addams Family theme song too?) in Compton, California was inspired by funeral homes in the south that offer the same kind of service.

“It's a unique feature that sets us aside from other funeral parlors,” Ms. Scott Adams told The Los Angeles Times. “You can come by after work, you don't need to deal with parking, you can sign the book outside and the family knows that you paid your respects - It's a convenience thing."

The funeral home is popular among gang members because of its accessibility and bullet-proof glass casing. 

On January, 27, 2003, RoadsideAmerica.com reported that the Junior Drive-Thru Funeral Home in Pensacola, Florida was out of business.  Owner Willie Junior was one of four (out of five) Escambia County Commissioners removed from office in 2002 by Gov. Jeb Bush after being arrested and charged with bribery, extortion, racketeering, and money laundering.  The home was a casualty of the scandal.

Never fear, though.  If you want a drive-by, I mean drive-through funeral service, you can travel to Gatling’s Funeral Home in the south side of Chicago.  It’s not just Bad, Bad Leroy Brown who hails from the south side. 

Owner Lafayette Gatling, a former construction worker, added the drive-through service to the home in 1987.  He said he used to feel uncomfortable paying his respects in soiled work clothes.

In an article in the Chicago Journal (January 23, 1989), he said, “The working person doesn’t have time to come in.  They want to see the body but they don’t want to wait.  I always thought there should be some way they could see the body any time they want.”

This is how it works:  visitors, cautioned to drive slowly, ride to a speakerphone and push a button for service.  An attendant asks whom they wish to see and the visitor responds.  Then the attendant tells them they may proceed.  The attendant turns on the lights and cameras over the body of the deceased lying in one of the rooms.

The driver/visitor signs a register secured underneath the speakerphone and drives a couple of feet to the viewing arena where a headshot of their loved one in a coffin appears on a 25-inch screen.  The picture lasts three seconds, but they may push a button so they can see the loved one over and over again.  Egad!  When they move their car, the next person in line may proceed.

Mr. Gatling says that of all the drive-through funeral homes (a few in Florida and California), none is as complex and sophisticated as his.  He said that the cameras and monitors are invaluable in “sticky” situations, such as when both a wife and girlfriend wish to visit the deceased.

He said, “. . . the girlfriend can go through the drive-through and pay her respects in whatever name she chooses, while the wife is inside with the deceased.  It happens all the time.”

The drive-through is also popular among the elderly and wheelchair-bound.  The Reverend Yvette Gash said, “It was like watching a good picture on television.”

And I thought Soylent Green hit the heights of weirdness.  Now it doesn't seem so far-fetched.  

I have been to open-casket wakes and hence, never want to be “viewed” post-mortem.  If, however, I were to be viewed behind glass at a drive-through venue, I want this song to be played.  For those of you who cannot view the video (I have heard from some of my friends you cannot), it is Blondie singing "Heart of Glass."  Seriously, though, I want to be cremated.