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Tomorrow marks the 41st anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s death after being shot by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California just minutes after winning the state’s Democratic presidential primary election.

On June 8, Kennedy’s body passed through Delaware County on its way to the nation’s capital on a funeral train. His funeral was the only nighttime funeral in the history of Arlington National Cemetery. It was not planned that way, however. It just happened because of the delays caused by the more than one million mourners who stood alongside the tracks of the funeral train as his body went by.

One of the most amazing parts of Kennedy’s assassination was his concern for others despite what happened to him. Just seconds after he was shot, a hotel busboy heard the senator ask if everybody was alright while he was probably in anguish from the gunshot wounds.

Those words are the subject of a new documentary that Oscar-winning filmmaker Jon Blair is working on about the incident. He asks “Is everybody alright?” referring to the people who lined the tracks as the train’s funeral cars went by.

You can read more about the documentary here. We’ll keep you updated on when this special documentary airs. From the sounds of it, it is going to be something you will not want to miss.

New Jersey’s Cumberland County was the place to see an attention-grabbing display of funeral cars and hearses following a procession to raise awareness about local violence.

On Saturday afternoon, funeral directors and other officials in the area worked together to hold the “Funeral for Violence,” an event that included three processions of funeral cars through the streets of the county. It was designed to show the sadness and finality of death caused by violence.

“The important thing was to bring together some of the victims, the fathers and mothers who lost loved ones to violence,” explained Albert Kelly, a councilman in Bridgeton and a member of the Nehemiah Coalition, an anti-violence group in the area.

If this story sounds familiar, it could be because the same group held a mock funeral last year for the same cause. However, last year’s demonstration was more localized whereas this year’s funeral processions stretched through the streets of Vineland, Millville and beyond.

During the processions, people passed out literature with facts about local gang violence and some tips to help the community combat the growing problem. The procession of funeral cars ended at Cumberland Community College where more than 300 people attended a 2 ½ hour service which included speeches from local pastors, an ex-gang member and others.

When Nick Corbo was dying, he made the request that his funeral cars be followed by some of his favorite muscle cars when he was taken to his final resting place. That’s almost what happened this past weekend in Stamford, Connecticut.

Behind the line of funeral cars was one of the more memorable muscle cars ever to come out of Detroit. It was a 1969 Dodge Super Bee driven by a man who had never met Nick Corbo. He did, however, read about the man’s dying wish to have muscle cars follow him to the cemetery and the problems that the family was having finding classic cars to participate in the procession. Corbo’s friends had classic muscle cars, but many of them were not drivable because they were in the process of being rebuilt. The family also contacted local car clubs, but they still had trouble finding muscle car owners who were able to participate in the procession. But Bill Parrott stepped up to help fulfill the man’s dying wish as best he could.

“I read the story about Nick, and it hit home,” he said in an interview.

One other muscle car was involved in the procession and that was a 1969 light blue Plymouth Belvedere owned by a friend of Corbo. It’s always nice when friends and even strangers step up to help pay respects and say goodbye to a fellow human being like this.

One of the given facts about funeral cars is that they use a lot of gas. There’s really no way of getting around it, you’re not going to get great funeral mileage in a hearse. Adding to the problem is the fact that manufacturers, for the most part, have turned a blind eye to the funeral industry.

One company in Japan, however, may be about to change that. There is a hearse company in Japan who intends to bring Green technology to the funeral car industry. The company, Lequios, is building a hearse based on the Toyota Prius hybrid vehicle as its base. The hearse is designed for families who want to be environmentally conscious, even when it comes to funeral considerations.

It is expected that the fuel economy for this particular funeral car would be as much as 49 miles per gallon.

You may recall hearing a story a couple weeks ago about a funeral director stealing the keys from a rival funeral home to a Rolls-Royce hearse just minutes before a service was about to take place. Now, David Leslie Wood, the keys thief, has pleaded guilty to theft in a Teesside Crown Court.

Wood stole the keys to Joel Kerr’s 1968 Rolls-Royce Phantom 6 funeral car just minutes before it was about to carry the remains of Patricia Thorburn to a nearby cemetery. The incident occurred in September 2008 at a Salvation Army citadel in Middlesborough in the UK. Since the family refused any other funeral car because Thorburn specifically requested the Rolls-Royce, one of Kerr’s staff stepped up and hotwired the vintage hearse so it could be driven to the cemetery. Unfortunately, the entire process held up the burial by an hour.

“We are very relieved and pleased that Mr. Wood pleaded guilty for the awful crime he committed,” explained fellow funeral director Irene Jessop. We will update you on his sentence when it gets handed down next month.

I did not know what rivalries existed between funeral directors. I guess there is a level of jealousy and competition in any business and the funeral industry must not be an exception.

Did you know that there are literally thousands of unclaimed urns full of ashes left behind at funeral homes? That comes out to about 10 percent of the total number of cremations conducted each year. But a nationwide veterans group is trying to do something to identify and claim many of the cremains that came from soldiers who fought for their country.

The Missing in America Project has identified nearly 600 veterans from about 6,600 cremains. The cremains are often left behind because families cannot decide what to do with them or because there simply is no family to give them to.

One veteran, however, has recently received a long overdue tribute after his cremains were identified. Joseph Glass served as an Army infantryman in Normandy and the Rhineland. When he died and was cremated in 1993, nobody claimed his cremains and his ashes were held at the Alesso Funeral Home in Lodi until just recently.

Glass is one of the first vets to get their long awaited interment. A new law in the state of New Jersey allows for the interment of cremains that have been abandoned at funeral homes or other facilities. As such, Glass received a full procession of funeral cars that was escorted by police to his final resting place.

Stories like this are good to hear. They kind of renew a sense of hope in humanity.

Funeral cars and a constant line of volunteers have visited the Riverside National Cemetery in the last eight days to pay respects to the fallen military veterans who are buried there. Currently, there are nearly 150,000 soldiers buried at the southern California cemetery and the volunteers have been arriving to help read the names of each and every one.

This is the first time anything like this has happened at a national cemetery in the United States, according to a spokesperson for the National Cemetery Administration in Washington. It has been called a “roll call program” and it began as an idea put forth by the Riverside cemetery staff personnel several months ago. In fact, they began putting the work out in April for volunteers who wanted to participate and read some of the names.

“So many people responded,” said Gill Gallo, the cemetery’s director. “We were amazed. It’s theirs now. They made it come to life.”

The cemetery has had two lecterns set up and volunteers typically come up two at a time and switch off reading names of buried veterans. It’s a great way to remember those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our nation. Are you doing anything special to remember the soldiers who have given their lives? Let us know what you are doing to commemorate this sacred day below.

Do you think parking officers should be more lenient on funeral cars and hearses when they are parked somewhere where other cars are not allowed?

This is exactly the argument occurring in Marlborough in the UK right now after parking wardens ticketed a funeral director for washing his hearse outside his facility in a “no parking” zone. The director was so mad, in fact, that he splashed the parking warden with water as she was giving him a ticket and she is considering assault charges in return.

The ironic part of the story is that David Hunter, the funeral director in question, asked the city to make the area outside his funeral home a “no parking” zone because other cars were parking there and blocking his hearses from getting in and out of the parking lot. He claims he was only partly parked on the double yellow lines and he said he was not blocking anybody in where he was parked. He went on to say this: “I know the wardens have a job to do but they should use their discretion.”

How do our readers weigh in on this story? Should the funeral director be allowed to park in the “no parking” zone in front of his facility to wash his hearses or did the parking warden do her job correctly? Let us know your thoughts below.

A couple weeks ago, we discussed some burglaries of funeral cars in Idaho. The burglaries occurred while mourners were inside the chapel grieving for their lost loved one. But this week, police in the area have announced that their investigation has led to the arrest of the man they think is responsible for those burglaries.

Thane Albert Eck, a 35-year-old Terreton resident, was arrested earlier this week. He was charged with five counts of burglary as well as one count of attempted burglary in connection with those funeral cars. Police are holding him in the Madison County Jail on $100,000 bail.

A few of the burglaries occurred on April 29 at the LDS Church on the corner of Second West and First South in Rexburg, Idaho. He is also charged with burglarizing other cars, including one at the Rexburg LDS Temple and one at a cosmetology school and beauty salon.

Eck was jailed later the same day on unrelated charges. However, once he was in custody, Rexburg Police connected some clues and came to the conclusion that Eck was the man they were looking for in connection with these burglaries.

I’m glad this guy is off the streets at least for the time being. It’s despicable that a person would burglarize funeral cars while people are at their most vulnerable points in their lives.

You may remember us posting something a few weeks ago about a 17-year-old in Scotland who was arrested for stealing a funeral car and taking it for a joyride. Earlier this week, he was sentenced for his crimes. He received six months in prison. But in case you missed the earlier post, here is what happened.

Sammy Townsley took one of the funeral cars from a local mortuary in Perth and drove it at speeds reaching 60 mph. After joyriding for awhile, he crashed it into a barrier. He was unhurt, but the collision rendered his passenger unconscious.

This is not the first time Townsley has been in trouble, though. Since turning 16 a little more than a year ago, he has been convicted of more than a dozen crimes. With this incident, he was not only charged with stealing the funeral car, but also driving without a proper license, having improper plates and failing to stop for police officers.

David Holmes, a solicitor that defended Townsley, had this to say about his actions: “He doesn’t really have a good explanation – if there could be such a thing – as to why the vehicle was taken.”

When sentenced, Sheriff Michael Fletcher told Townsley that he “cannot carry on this way.”