Out With A Bang

This story was on the news a few days ago..I can't help it...I laughed! What is with people being buried in crazy ways lately? I can just imagine his whole family standing around when they let off the firework full of his ashes....BANG.....and then his ashes start raining down on them and the little kids run around with their tounges out trying to catch a piece of grandpa. So I thought to myself.. I really like to scrapbook. Maybe I should be creamated and then my ashes can be used on scrapbook pages. Just glue some of me down on some pretty paper and add some feet and hand stickers or something. Ok I'm done..read on


Pyrotechnician's ashes to be launched in a fireworks shell

Tonight marks Meredith Smith's grand finale.

A pyrotechnician who died in February at age 74, Smith spent nearly 40 years shooting fireworks displays for Northside residents near Ravenswood and around the White River Yacht Club.

His family is funneling about a half-teaspoon of Smith's ashes into a fireworks shell that will create a white burst in the sky after a traditional multicolored finale.

"I can't think of a better way," said Kevin Moss, 49, a family friend and Yacht Club member.

More than $10,000 in donations paid for this year's event at Ravenswood Beach on Ruth Street. More than 300 businesses, friends and other donors this year gave any amount, even $1, to be listed on a neighborhood flier about the display.

"We started this as a community service almost 40 years ago," Smith's widow, Charlotte Smith, said Wednesday. "Meredith felt like the people in this area didn't get the opportunities that other people got, and so he wanted to give them the opportunity. Sometimes, we took the money out of our own pocket."

Smith also will be memorialized through hundreds of T-shirts referring to tonight's tribute as "the last shot."

Friends Harry Davis, George Foster and Stan "Doc" Wisehart arranged to print the shirts. All belong to the White River Yacht Club, 1400 E. 74th St.

"He is missed by a lot of people. It's like losing one of the family," said Davis, 65.

Cremated remains may be disposed of on the property of a consenting owner, uninhabited public land or in a waterway, according to Indiana law.

"There doesn't appear to be anything in our codes that relates to this issue, and in talking to our water-quality people, if this is something a family wishes to do, we don't see how it would create a public health issue," said John Althardt of the Health and Hospital Corp. of Marion County.

He called the plan a creative one.

"I think that whatever a family can do to remember their loved one . . . is great," he said.