The unsolicited mail you receive is, as we know, often age-related. Get enough seniority in life, for example, and all of a sudden you’re hearing about AARP cruises and Fred Thompson waxing on about the merits of reverse mortgages. I get my share.
Then there’s the Neptune Society with its mortality reminder. Affordably scatter your ashes, not your widow’s finances.
Only with me, there’s an added reminder.
While a reporter for the Tampa Bay Business Journal, I once did a piece on the Neptune Society and the niche it was carving out of the funeral-arrangement business since its 1973 founding. I talked with traditional funeral-home directors as well as Neptune founder Charles Denning, who was typically featured in TV and print ads in jaunty nautical raiment. He also had a silver goatee and mustache, not unlike a certain fried chicken icon.
The competition, less than pleased with the growing popularity of the cremation alternative, invariably referenced him as the self-promoting “Col. Cinders.”
I worked that reference into the piece–of course, I did–and for the first time there was an audible reaction around the office that even included the sales staff. They were used to my bad puns infiltrating copy but “Col. Cinders,” which wasn’t even my creation, became TBBJ lore for years.