The Crusader

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Financial pressures have made many of the independent funeral homes easy picking for corporate buyouts, which triggers alarms for Carlson. "We know from reports that the manipulative sales tactics of these giant chains are pretty despicable. All they really care about is the stockholders, not the neighborhood family." She told me about a woman who belonged to a memorial society in the Midwest. After her death, it turned out that the cooperating funeral home had been bought out by SCI. They tried to add $250 to the previously contracted fee, and when the woman's son objected, they wouldn't release the ashes. The son called Carlson.

"He was rip-&$#@," she recalls. "He faxed me his material and I FedExed it to the FTC. Three days, and I got an opinion back. I never got an opinion so fast; It's illegal."

Despite these horror stones, Carlson foresees a positive future for consumers.

"Look at the generation that demanded we recycle. Many of them wrote their own wedding vows. They demanded the right to natural childbirth and home schooling. I think they are going to take charge of their funeral experience, just the way you're taking charge."

The phone rings and it's time for Carlson to do a talk show with a radio station in San Antonio. She's impressive, even awe-inspiring, this woman who's wrestling with life's biggest bummer. Some have criticized her for being hot-tempered, pushy, inflexible. But if that's what it takes to wake a culture in denial, so be it.

I thank her, feeling more resolute than when I arrived, but glad to be heading home.

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