The older I get the more Eulogies I seem to be delivering. My dear friend Charlie Barcio is 106 years old and his lovely wife, Dorie, asked me to do the honors if I manage to survive him.

Despite the fact that Charlie has 46 years on yours truly, it could still be a horserace to the finish line, a fact of which I am not entirely proud. Charlie rides his bike eight miles a day and is clearly sharp as a tack. I do not even own a bike, but I do suffer through four miles a day on a treadmill down at the local sweat factory.

Funerals should be celebrations of the life of the person being memorialized. The best of those celebrations involve a lot of humor and camaraderie.

Though death is a solemn event, the death process is sometimes very funny. Over the years, I have had the honor of addressing scores conventions of funeral directors, insurance agents, lawyers, florists, actuaries and a variety of others that are in the business of providing for the grand sendoff.

At a recent speech before a group of actuaries, a fellow speaker, himself an actuary, observed that the latest data just in tells us there is still a 100% likelihood you are going to the dark side of the dirt at some point in the not too distant future… so why fight it?

With the graying of America and the baby boom turning to eternal doom, I suspect I will have many other ample opportunities to send others to their grand reward.

In speaking to a group of estate planning lawyers recently, one of my fellow speakers, a barrister by trade, suggested that a Will was nothing more than a dead giveaway. Bah, dah, boop!

In speaking to a group of cemetery directors, they were complaining about having to raise burial costs, pointing to the high cost of living, which I found to be a bit of a contradiction.

A man had 50-yard line tickets for the Super Bowl. As he sits down, another fan comes down and asks if anyone is sitting in the seat next to him. "No," he says, "The seat is empty."

"This is incredible," said the man. "Who in their right mind would have a seat like this for the Super Bowl, the biggest sporting event in the world, and not use it?"

He says, "Well, actually, the seat belongs to me. I was supposed to come with my wife, but she passed away. This is the first Super bowl we haven't been to together since we got married in 1967."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. That's terrible. But couldn't you find someone else-a friend or relative, or even a neighbor to take the seat?" The man shakes his head. "No… they're all at the funeral."

A young preacher was asked by a local funeral director to conduct a graveside burial for a man who had no family or friends. The preacher left early for the cemetery but quickly got lost, having made several wrong turns.

Eventually he showed up a half hour late and saw a backhoe and its crew, but the hearse was nowhere in sight and no one was there. Nearby a few workmen were eating their lunch. The diligent young pastor went to the open grave and found the vault lid was already in place.

Taking out his bible, he read a passage and proceeded to deliver an impassioned sendoff. As he returned to his car moments later, he overheard one of the workmen say, “I have been putting in septic tanks for 30 years and I ain’t ever seen anything like that before!”

Some of the funniest people on the planet are funeral directors. I love their one-liners. How is business? Dead! Or…laid-back. Their favorite saying: “We are the last to let you down…” and on and on and on. 99% of all funeral directors give the rest a bad name.

One man observed, when I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming… like the passengers in his car.