Dig We Must, for a Dying Norway

Years and years ago, when Con Edison used to put up wooden saw horses around their digging sites in New York the saw horses displayed the company slogan: Dig We Must For A Growing New York. This was the meant to be the pre-emptive apology for eliminating traffic lanes and creating bottlenecks. Any barriers that are now placed around work sites do not carry any slogan or apology. Just dig, baby dig. And splice.

Con Edison continues to dig for a growing New York, as Norway apparently digs for a dying Norway, or, to be more specific, digs to reuse graves so that the newly deceased can be buried where there were once others.

This is a form of recycling we don't see here. No, there are no old Norwegians pushing shopping carts of virtual empty graves. Or full ones. It's high tech all the way.

The WSJ's A-Head piece yesterday recounts the Norwegian policy of reusing graves after 20 years if the original descendants or caretakers do not extend what in effect is a 20 year lease on the use of the land. In Norway, even graves expire.

This holds true only if the deceased was not wrapped in plastic at the time of their burial. Apparently once in Norway there was a practice of wrapping bodies in plastic for sanitary reasons, and then inserting them in coffins, and then in the ground. The plastic has done a very good job of preserving the body, so in effect, it doesn't decay, even after 20 years.

Norwegians are not a callous lot. They just need burial space. So, what do you do with plastic wrapped bodies that are not decayed after 20 years in graves that no one wants to keep the seat license active for? Lime.

Any slightly attentive movie-goer knows that the mob uses lime to speed the decay of bodies they don't want found. No sense having evidence pop up in a dog's mouth if there are ways to prevent it. The story describes, and shows the efforts that are used to inject lime into the grave to hasten the decay of the remains, thus releasing the spot for the next occupant. And in a perfect symmetry with the body disposal properties of wet cement, someone with a cement background has aided a former graveyard worker to perfect the lime-injection-body-disposal system. Everything, of course, is done with approval.

Real estate space is tight in New York as well. And finding an apartment in Manhattan is difficult, even ones that can minimally be afforded. It is not mentioned in the story, but the application of lime to living people, or barely living, might be a way to create apartment vacancies. Death has a way, sometimes, of removing tenants. A white powdery blast from an elevator shaft might clear the floor of old people as they make their way to Gristede's. For the shut-ins, something white and feathery wafting through the heating system might create the desired turnover.

Cultural differences. Norwegians apparently have never had to bury American Indians, or slaves. Or maybe they did, and they're under some very expensive skyscrapers in Oslo.

For the price of legal fees, there might be new owners of those buildings.

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