How Many Dead Aggies Does it Take...?

Mack Hall

College Station, where there is a college but no station, is segregating a section of its new city cemetery for Aggies only.

There is no word yet on whether the Aggies-only section will rest adjacent to the exclusive Elvis impersonator section. The answer might be indexed in the official guide to funerals in America, Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One.

Ross Albrecht (’84), marketing manager for the new cemetery, told the Associated Press that the use of Texas A & M symbols will be “correct and respectful.” The entrance to the Aggie section will be a “Spirit Gate” between two concrete columns faked up to look like limestone, and for the discerning Aggie there’s nothing that says correct and respectful like chunks of concrete painted to look like something else.

Correct and respectful pallbearers could be rounded up from The Dixie Chicken.

Maybe the maroon Aggie hearse will be drawn to the cemetery by twelve little Reveilles wearing maroon mourning plumes.

Although Texas A & M has no direct connection with the city cemetery, the school will license the use of trademarked A & M logos and other symbols. This means that if you – for reasons best known to yourself – wish to have your mortal remains decorated with an image of Ol’ Sarge, you will have to pay Texas A & M for permission.

Licensing agreements guarantee the quality of Texas A & M’s acounts receivable. The difference between a cheap, unlicensed, made-in-China tee-shirt proclaiming “Fightin’ Texas Aggies” and another cheap, licensed, made-in-China tee shirt proclaiming “Fightin’ Texas Aggies” is, well, nothing except a tag.

Will we ever see a tee proclaiming “Studyin’ Texas Aggies?”

Made-in-China Texas A & M coffee cups, made-in-China Texas A & M neckties, made-in-China Texas A & M lunch buckets, Made-in-China Texas A & M portable toilets, and now, dug-in-College Station Texas A & M holes in the ground, license fees payable to the university.

And some people say America isn’t a religious country.

A sales brochure preaches "The concept is that the Spirit of Aggieland travels in a ceremonial way from the campus to the Aggie Field of Honor through this final gateway." If that isn’t straight out of the Gospels I don’t what is.

At this writing no one is clear whether or not having posed nude or semi-nude will be a bar to resting in peace in The Aggie Field of Honor.

If the University of San Francisco were to feature a cemetery, would the trustees establish an Eternal Joint exuding faux marijuana smoke in The Mahareshi Yoga Guru Garden of Like, You Know, Where It Is Forever 1968?

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology would have to license Star Trek Action Figure grave markers from Paramount. Funeral services might be offered in Klingon.

A beauty school – the Dear Departed is buried with a 21-hair-dryer salute.

Good ol’ A & M, coming up with a brand-new century-old tradition every year or so.

But what if…just what if Aggies who Pass On To The Other Side make their last Whoop! at the pearly gates only to discover that Saint Peter wears burnt orange?

Hullabaloo, caneck, caneck!