Wednesday, October 24, 2007

“She didn’t even like bird poop on her car”


From the New York Times: Terrible Tillie, Where the Departed Rest Not Quite in Peace. "Terrible Tilly" was the nickname for the lighthouse on Tillamook Rock off the Oregon coast. The lighthouse was built on a battered chunk of rock in the 1880s to warn ships as they approached the entrance of the Columbia River. Though ever-so-picturesque, the lighthouse was expensive and dangerous to maintain and was decommissioned in 1957.

So what do you do with an abandoned lighthouse? Terrible Tilly went through a variety of hands until purchased in 1980 by Eternity At Sea Columbarium, a business venture that turned Tilly into a scenic final resting place where folks could pay up to $2500 to have their ashes stored for all eternity.

Or until the outfit goes broke--as Eternity At Sea Columbarium seems to have done. Today Tillie's roof is leaking, some of the funeral urns are missing, and the lighthouse is apparently full of bird poop. That and dead people.

No comments: