WiFi Cemetery: How Californians will Express Themselves in the After Life
Press Democrat“So many people want to be a tree.”
– Tyler Cassity, cemetery entrepreneur
The late Mike Royko, the Chicago columnist who lived to make fun of California’s eccentricities, will be sorry he missed the story about the state’s first “organic cemetery.”
The Sacramento Bee reported that hundreds of Marin County residents are dying to acquire a plot in the Mill Valley cemetery now known as Forever Fernwood.
The graveyard features video memorials, biodegradable caskets and laptops with global positioning systems to help visitors locate unmarked grave sites.
“The Internet is part of our chapel,” explained Tyler Cassity, a partner in the new cemetery. In a past life, the story notes, Cassity worked as a consultant on the HBO series, “Six Feet Under,” the dark comedy about a family that operates a mortuary.
Cassity and his partners believe well-heeled baby boomers are ready to reject traditional funerals and mammoth gravestones for personalized ceremonies and understated grave sites that allow the deceased to be one with nature.
For a mere $38,500, your loved one can find peace in a papier- mache coffin buried near a heritage oak.