One morning I received a telephone call from a man who had looked me up on the internet. He said he had some items that had once belonged to Judy Garland that I might be interested in. He described the objects as "handles."

         "What kind?" I asked "Door? Suitcase? Ping pong? "There was a slight pause. As I was rattling my brain for other types of handles to offer  - CB radio? Fridge?- he interrupted...

         "They were the handles to her casket."

         We arranged to meet for lunch at Blair's Steak House that afternoon. When we sat down at a table in the center of the restaurant, he removed a package from his bag and placed two casket handles on the table. They had been painted black, and were very worn.

         "I have to begin by telling you a little bit about how I came to work at Campbell's." he said.

         I knew that Campbell's funeral home was the most exclusive funeral home in New York at the time of Judy Garland's death.  It was where twenty two thousand people flocked to pay their final respects to her before she was buried at Ferncliff Cemetery.

         "I was a young man of 21 years old at the time," he started, "I was going to school in New York. Now, I was born and raised upstate in Buffalo, I'd never been to Manhattan. So as you can imagine I knew very little about the big city."

         "So one morning I was walking down Madison Avenue, and I looked up and saw a sign that said ‘Funeral Home.’ Now... I needed work, so I walked in and went up to the woman who was the receptionist and said, 'Hello. I'm in school and I'd like to apply for a job.' The woman looked up at me from her desk without moving her head, and with a pursed smile and slight chuckle she said, 'my dear young man, do you know where you are?' Totally missing her gibe, I answered 'Well the sign outside says funeral home.' She put her pen down and replied loudly, 'my dear boy, you're in the Tiffany's of the funeral business!' And I said, 'What's Tiffany?' That's how naive I was. So she looked down at her desk again and, dropping her fake smile, she said flatly 'I'm sorry we don't hire anyone without experience, at least a minimum of 10 to 15 years in the business. And we're not hiring anybody now.' Then she lowered her head and carried on with her writing."

         "Maybe you should have looked in the window for a few minutes first , while eating a croissant and a coffee from a paper bag." I added.

         "What?" he asked.

         "I'm sorry, go on."

         "OK, so with that I was about to walk out. But suddenly across the lobby walks Teddy Thorne, the director of Campbell's funeral home at the time. Now it turns out he was from upstate New York too, and he recognized my accent, and he said 'Hey kid! What are you doing here?' I said I was looking for a job. And he said, 'You know where you are?' So I said, 'the woman tells me I'm in Tiffany's.' He laughed really loudly, and said 'I get a kick out of ya kid. I'm gonna give you a job!' and I got hired. So when I graduated school I went to work there - and that's how I got started. I became the personal page and assistant to the manager of Campbell's. He immediately took a liking to me because I followed orders to the 't' and never varied or questioned anything."

         Suddenly the waiter approached our table, and rather hurriedly told us the day's specials, as the restaurant was getting rather packed. We both ordered large iced teas.

         "Ok. So what did all this lead to?" I asked him as I squeezed a lemon wedge into my glass.

         "So anyway," he went on, "I had been working there for about four or five months already, when one night at about eight the director came into the funeral home. First of all he's never there at eight at night, so that was odd right off the bat. He walks up to me, takes ten dollars out of his pocket he says 'Take this, go get a nice steak dinner and then go home. Change into your best suit and come back here at 11:00.' Well, being the good soldier I was I didn't say why? Or where? Or what for? I mean it was a little strange. And so I literally went out and had a steak dinner with the ten dollars, went home, got dressed and came back at 11:00 at night."

         "Ok."

         "Well, I arrive back at Campbell's at 11:00 at night, and I see that there's a hearse there, and also a New York City police car, and also Teddy is standing there. So the hearse driver, the director and I got in the hearse. We pull away from the funeral home and follow the police car, which appears to be leaving Manhattan. Keep in mind I don't ask questions...I have no idea what's going on at this time, I mean it's pretty late at night! This is strange, and doesn't seem within the realm of duties of the assistant to the manager of a funeral home. So after riding a while I realize we are driving out to Kennedy airport. OK, so we get there and then we hook up with a Port Authority police car. Now we’ve got one in the front of us and one in the back, and I still don't know what's going on. And we start driving all through the airport, but not any way that I have ever seen before. All of a sudden I see blue flickering lights on either side of the vehicle, and I realize we're actually out on the runway! Now I've never done anything like that, I mean I've barely ever been on a plane before, and I'm thinking, 'My God, what are we doing out here?'"

         "Yeah?"

         "I wondered if he was going to fly me off to some undisclosed location or something!"

         "Oh..." I said, suddenly snapping back to the restaurant we were in. I looked to my left and noticed that an elderly woman sitting at the table to my left was staring right at me, smiling. She had on a Margaret Thatcher wig, a beige corduroy blazer over a white silk blouse, and super-thick glasses that magnified her eyeballs - which were set dead center right into mine. I just couldn't look away from her gaze, so I said, "Hi!"

         "You can't get a steak dinner in New York for ten dollars anymore!" she loudly crooned with a friendly face, interrupting my friend's story.

         I looked back at my friend.

         "You can't get a steak dinner in New York for ten dollars in this town anymore! That's for sure!" she repeated, waiting for anyone to respond. "I'm sorry I just couldn't help but overhear!" she then added.

         I looked over at her lunch companion, an even older woman who was gazing at us fondly over the top of her cream spinach. I mentioned something about the value menus at McDonald's which made them both laugh, and go back to their meals. It suddenly occurred to me how loud my friend's voice was, even over the din of the restaurant. But he continued.

         "Well," he went on, "what we eventually did out there  on the runway is we meet up with a parked plane, before it even had approached the arrival port. And the cops and security are all there, lights are flickering... the works. And extending from where the plane is stopped there's a long conveyor belt jutting out. And of course by now I kind of have a general idea, but I still don't know exactly what's going on and am too intimidated by this point to inquire the details."

         "It all sounds very clandestine." I offered.

         "Yeah, like top secret! I mean... I was stunned! So I just kept my mouth shut. So we got out and eventually I overhear the airport personnel and some of the police saying 'Blah, blah, Garland, blah, blah, Judy Garland, blah, blah, Judy, Judy.' So it took me a minute, but soon I figured out that it must be Judy Garland! I remembered seeing in the headlines a day or two before that she had died. But I was 21 years old and, you know, I just knew she was a famous person, that's all. I didn't know the extent of her fame personally at that time. But I was about to learn even more after that day."

         "Wow!" I said, noticing that the two old women to my left had now grown incredibly quiet as they ate.

         "So," my friend went on,  "Eventually out came the container, out of the airplane, with her in it. It was just a big wooden crate obviously with a casket inside. Just like 'b-b-b-r-r-r-n-n-n...' along the conveyor belt it comes. And we all get out and reach over and heave the crate off of the belt and carefully put it into the hearse!"

         "Uh-huh." I say, hearing what sounds like a fork dropping on a plate to my left.

         "So," he said, "now we have to drive all the way back to Campbell's. It's about 1:00 in the morning you know, and on the long ride I'm getting a little bit excited and anxious. We get into Manhattan, and as we're pulling up to Campbell's, there was already like 50 or 60 people out there on the sidewalk in front of the place! It was a pilgrimage outside the funeral home! I mean, word hadn't gotten out about the services or anything really - even we didn't know the details. But these were the types of fans who knew that if Judy Garland's funeral was going to be in New York, Campbell's was going to do it. So there they were, just standing, waiting and staring."

         "She had, or has, a really dedicated fan base." I said, knowing he knew I was in their ranks.

         "Yeah, I mean, it kind of hit me at that moment as we were pulling up. It was so late at night! I got even more anxious! So we pull in, take the shipping container into the funeral home, uncrated it. And inside, there was this casket. And I say 'casket' because it was a European burial container, like in Dracula movies."

         "What do you mean?"

         "Well, a European casket is human shaped, wider at the shoulders and narrow at the feet - and this is technically called a casket. What we have traditionally in America are more long rectangle boxes, called coffins. There's a difference. It was a pretty ugly casket because it was dark stained mahogany wood. But it was so darkly stained that it was nearly black. It was almost black on black."

         "And these are the handles?" I asked, pointing down.

         "Yes." he said.

         "Why only two?"

         "I'll get to that. So anyway we took her out of that casket. And well, when we did, we could feel that her body and all her clothing was wet. I mean really wet. It was because of the container the casket had been shipped in; it was sealed too tight. She had literally flown across the Atlantic in an air-tight bubble. So the whole effect over that period of time was like a high altitude terrarium; it was heavy condensation. Her dress was ruined, which at the time I thought was a gray knit jersey material and later found out was silver lame. Well, that was all soaked, ruined, you know, blech. And we peeled that off of her. We put the muggy garment in a bag and just threw it in the corner, I assumed for the incinerator later."

         "Wait, wasn't Judy Garland buried in a silver lame dress?" I asked, expecting a twist.

         "Oh, I'll get to that," he continued, "So, then we got a really good look at all of her and we realized she was in a really bad condition. They hadn't done a good job embalming her in England. She was turning green - gray and green."

         "Didn't they perform an autopsy on her in England?" I gulped.

         "Oh yeah." he said

         The waiter arrived to take our orders. I glanced half commiseratively over at the two elderly women next to us. They were both looking down at their coffee cups, stirring them with lips pursed, silent.

         "So then," he said, piping up, "Teddy says, 'she's never gonna last three to four days in this state!' So he put us to work on her right away. Myself and a more experienced guy, we literally re-embalmed her all over again to preserve her properly, so she would last. She was turning into a swamp! And while doing this we discovered that at her wrist and the crux of her elbow, the medical examiner in England had taken out swatches of her flesh for a diagnosis of the cause of death. And it was leaking and stuff, so those missing pieces had to be reconstructed. Well, she had been in bad shape - and when we finished she looked better, but still looked pretty bad in the face and stuff, green and all, because you know we couldn't repair the damage that resulted from the poor embalming."

         "Jesus..."

         "So anyway, she's just laying there like that, and now it was about 3:00 in the morning. The director tells me to go home and says 'Come back at 8:00. I'm canceling all the funerals that we have scheduled.' And when he said come back, he meant the whole staff! They had a staff of about 30-35 people there. So everybody was to report in the morning. Oh, I hardly slept that night. And when I got back there at 8:00 in the morning, the police had towed all the parked cars from Madison Avenue to Fifth Avenue, on both sides of the street! And they had barricades that would snake up and down the street because they knew what was coming next. And it had already started; at 8:00, there were probably 500 people there right away. Police were there patrolling, obviously."

         "Wow!"

         "So all the employees assembled, and the director says, 'Ok, this is what we're gonna do; when we open at 1:00 today, we're gonna be open 24 hours from that point on, for the next two days. She's going to be displayed for the public starting at 1:00. We're going to open the doors for 55 minutes at a time, let the crowds in, close for five minutes to rearrange the flowers, go to the bathroom, do whatever you have to do, and then open them again.' So it was going to be 55 and five, 55 and five, twenty four-seven straight for two days!"

         "Oh my god!" I said, "They could've had a drive through!"

         "Believe me, if he could've arranged that, he would've, because it would have saved time! They were anticipating a massive show of people, and it was good thing they did as you'll see."

         "So what happened next?"

         "So now the manager said to me, 'stay close to me, Mickey Deans is coming in at 9:00 for arrangements.' And of course I had no idea who Mickey Deans was!"

         "Here are your tossed salads." our waiter interrupted, slightly brushing one of the coffin handles across the tablecloth as he set the bowls down in front of us.

         "Mickey Deans was her husband at the time of her death. He managed a disco." I stated, realizing he probably knew this by now.

         "Yes!" he said, pointing up and smiling, "But at the time I just did what the director asked! So at 9:00, in walked three people. Mickey came in with an attorney, and also a minister, who I think was the minister who married them in England. So I was just standing in the arrangement room and he's there with the three of them making the arrangements. They went over how many days the funeral's going to be and that it was going to be by invitation only, and what the rules were going to be, etcetera, etcetera."

         "That hadn't even been decided?" I asked.

         "Nope. Not exactly. She wasn't being displayed yet, she was still downstairs and not looking great. But I'll get to that in a minute. So Mickey's there to make arrangements and right away he said, 'I don't want her displayed in that ugly thing that she was shipped in from England.' And we said, 'Fine. We'll be glad to sell you another casket.' So Campbell's at that time had three display rooms with caskets for sale. And when a manager was making arrangements he was kinda sizing up your role in life and your monetary worth, for all intents and purposes. And you would either go into room A, B, or C. It's a bit of a selling job, obviously. But it was also a sensitivity issue. I mean, you couldn't have everything in one room. You wouldn't want to parade families that didn't have much money past the really lavish, expensive coffins and say 'Oh here come down to this end of the room where all the cheap garbage is!'"

         I laughed.

         "But, as it turns out, this technique weirdly backfired a little bit in this case, surprisingly."

         "How?"

         "Ok, I'll get to that. So obviously, Teddy escorts Mickey and crew right into room A, which has the most expensive caskets. In there they started at $5000 and went up to about, $14,000 or $15,000, and this is 1969, remember."

         "Wow."

         "Yeah, the most expensive one now that would be over $100,000. And at the time that would be a solid cast-bronze casket that weighed about 800 lbs. Anyway, we're in the super-expensive casket room and Mickey Deans goes straight over to a very, very fancy, silver-plated casket. Very filigree, ornate, theatrical... you know, very heavy design and, for a lack of a better term, Italian style. And it seemed apropos that someone looking for the grandest funeral treatment possible would like it. And of course he said, 'I think we'll take this.' So he told them it was $10,000. So then, here's the weird part, the attorney kind of shook his head. So then this causes Mickey to go over to another casket, a lesser-looking one which was $5000, and he said, 'How about this one?' And the attorney again shook his head."

         "What do you mean?" I asked.

         "Well, with this, Teddy interrupted and said, 'Well, hold on fellas, what's going on?' Campbell's knew that having this funeral was not about money, actually. At that time they used to do between eight and fifteen funerals a day. They were really busy. But as I said they turned away an awful lot of people during this because it wouldn't be fair to other families to have mobs of Judy Garland fans trampling their services. So they knew turning away all that business was going to be a huge loss no matter what. So now, you know, this is like even more ridiculous. Teddy was basically like 'What do you mean $5000?'"

         "So what happened?"

         "Well, the attorney pulls him aside and explains the facts; that there's just not much money there. To put it more bluntly, Mickey's totally broke."

…part two of Judy Garland's Casket Handles, next Monday