It’s the small towns that often have the best stories, and my small, Iowa community is no exception. All that I am about to relate to you took place around the turn of the century, when today’s sleepy little town was a thriving, booming rail-road town. During this time, the local physician was a man by the name of Dr. O’Keeffe, an ex-military man who during the summer always dressed in a white suit and Panama hat, a very disciplined and tidy man. Well Dr. O’Keeffe would always get into jokes and pranks with the local undertaker, a man by the name of Bert, who just loved to antagonize the poor doctor. Now Dr. O’Keeffe had a beautiful Buick that he just loved, and the boys would sometimes go and put axle grease on the door handle, which just drove Doc crazy, to get dirty grease all over his hands. Well one day, Bert and the boys went one step further. They went and put grease all over the seat of that pristine Buick, and when Dr. O’Keeffe jumped in his car, he got grease all over his white suit.
Oh, Dr. O’Keeffe was so upset. He knew that Bert was the one behind this, so he hatched a little plan. Now Bert also had a furniture store besides the undertaking business, and was such a heavy drinker that sometimes he would pass-out from being so drunk. So the next time Bert passed-out, Dr. O’Keeffe put his plan into action. He quietly stripped all of Bert’s clothes off while he was asleep, and tied a big red ribbon around Bert’s middle, so as to cover the important bits. Then he put Bert in one of his own caskets, with the lid wide open, and rolled him out into the front window of his furniture store. So the next day, when all the ladies and townsfolk were going about their business, there lay poor Bert, naked, asleep in his own casket, for all the world to see.
iowacycle 