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The first death threat I ever got was from a friend in 1985. 'Dieter' and I were pale, skinny virgins attending Cariboo College in the pulpmill town of Kamloops, B.C, Canada. Tragically, we fell in love with the same girl. Dieter wooed her first and they dated for a few months. But when she dumped him on New Year's, Dieter plunged into a suicidal depression and begged me to talk her out of leaving. Bad strategy. One kiss led to another and soon we were shagging each other senseless.

Furious at my betrayal, Dieter stalked us in his souped-up Volkswagen Super Beetle. Later, he broke into her car and left her teddy bears clutching heartbroken letters. When that didn't win her back, he sent me misspelled death threats like 'Your [sic] dead, red!' – which I corrected in red ink and promptly mailed back to him.

Bad strategy. It was mid-morning in Reagan's America, and pale lone gunmen were all the rage: Mark Chapman had just snuffed out John Lennon, and John W. Hinckley, Jr. had tried to whack the president. Thus inspired, Dieter told his co-workers he planned to shoot me, then hide in the woods. Alarmed at his accelerating hatred, they warned me that Dieter had bought a .22 and a British Army Rifle. He kept them loaded in the trunk of his Super Beetle along with camping gear and a month's worth of food and water.

After Dieter and I careened through the streets in a frightening Rockford-style car chase, I called the cops, who refused to help me because Dieter wasn't technically in the act of killing me yet. At age nineteen, with Dieter lurking ever nigh, it suddenly dawned on me. My lifespan could be measured in seconds, not decades. In that instant, I was no longer an invincible teenager. Death could snatch me at any moment and I had to be prepared. Dieter's final warning was, "Hegan, you dick, you'd better write your obituary."

It was a great tough-guy line, and I wish I'd thought of it first. I laughed him off, and hopped the next Greyhound out of town. But over the years, Dieter's suggestion stayed with me, and I became fascinated by the idea of writing my own obituary. By writing my own obit, I reasoned, I would cleanse my fear of death and save my parents from being forced to cobble together a grief-stricken bio. And since I had exclusive insider access to my protagonist, how hard could writing a self-obit be?

So I penned a nine-page epic that paraded all my Earth-shaking twentysomething milestones and triumphs. I bragged about things I'd never done in places I'd never been, and punctuated it with tearful tributes from my nonexistent fans. It was a gooey cake of fiction: sweet, uplifting, and the worst mound of stink that I've ever vomited onto a page.

Clearly, obituary writing requires a keen journalist's eye and a trifle more than a dilettante's understanding of dying, death, and grief. To write a great obituary, I realized, I needed inspiration and mentorship from the masters of this art. I started buying papers to see who'd fallen off a ladder or choked on a pretzel. I also pored over The Daily Telegraph's bound collections of great obits. My favorite, written by the Telegraph's world-renowned obits editor, Hugh Massingberd, described the flamboyant pianist Liberace and his "$300,000 rhinestone-studded Norwegian blue fox cape with a 16 foot train," his "red, white and blue hotpants," and the palimony suit from his "secretary-cum-chauffeur." And, in the final sentence, simply, "He was unmarried."

Then I struck paydirt. My research turned up a Dallas organization called The International Association of Obituarists. Founded in 1999 by "obituary enthusiast" Carolyn Gilbert, the IAO is dedicated to recognizing the obituary "both as history and as literary art form." Posted on their Web site, alongside the world's finest obituaries, was this teaser:

We go to the obituary page each morning as if drawn by some internal magnet. What piece of our own existence do we find listed there among strangers? What memories? What revelations? What questions? Is the obituary truly the end... or merely the beginning of a journey to unravel history... mystery... comedy...tragedy... or the great diversity of life and imagination?

Beneath this teaser sat this exciting notice:

We're pleased to announce the Sixth Great Obituary Writers' Conference will return to Las Vegas, NEW MEXICO on June 3 - 5, 2004.

This year's conference promises to be a spectacular gathering of international obituary specialists. A panel of outstanding presenters will address issues of policy, professional standards, psychological impact of obituary writing, dueling obituaries, new trends in style, and strange/true/untrue obits.

Make your plans now to join some of the best obituary writers in the world for fun, inspiration and enlightenment.

Thursday morning, June 3rd:

Sparked by the chance to schmooze a room of top-ranked international obituarists, I fly to Albuquerque, rent a car, and floor it across two hours of parched New Mexico desert. As I zoom past Santa Fe, I encounter three portents of doom in five minutes: two electrical hazard signs showing the Lightning Bolt Zapping the Cartoon Guy's Guts, plus a giant road sign depicting boulders crashing onto the windshield of the Unsuspecting Traveling Salesman with the Hat. I ease off the gas pedal as it occurs to me that dying on the way to an Obituary Writers Conference will only get me laughed at.

At 7 p.m., I pull into dusty downtown Las Vegas, NM, pop. 15,000, and definitely a one-horse town. The town square is empty, but my hotel, the Plaza, is easy to find: there's an old blue hearse parked right outside the hotel saloon. Painted white script on the hearse's window reads,

Out in the Blue
Obituary Vignettes
Written by Morgan Ashby Carter

Walking into the lobby is like stepping into Doc Holliday's wild west circa 1882. There's a piano, a quaint tearoom filled with plump, chattering WASPs, and a rowdy saloon packed with tattooed Harley-riding Neuvos Mexicanos. I'm the last delegate to check in. They assign me to Room 101 on the ground floor, perfectly located next to the saloon.

Carolyn Gilbert cries, "You made it!" and greets me with a big hug. Carolyn is short, round and motherly, and wraps her Dallas drawl around me like a warm shawl. Her daughter Ashlee says, "Welcome to Las Vegas," and passes me a sponsored freebie -- a blood-red beer holder -- and a bone-white conference binder. A cartoon on the cover shows three cloaked grim reapers at a cocktail party. They're holding scythes, drinking highballs, and wearing name tag stickers that read 'My name is Death'.

The Gilberts tow me into the tearoom, pour me a glass of red wine, and introduce me to the delegates. Dave Snyder, a nerdy guy in his 50s, looks like the hapless travelling salesman on the road-warning sign. Dave hails from Alfred, New York, where he's the "editor, publisher, and janitor" of The Alfred Sun community newspaper. Dave says he's come to the obit conference at deep personal cost. "Back home right now, I'm missing Alfred's Traffic Light Festival," he says. "We have one traffic light and it's the thirtieth anniversary parade."

I tell Carolyn I want to meet the owner of the blue hearse. She frowns and says, "Oh, you don't want to talk to them. They're smoking too much peyote. Nice people, but they're not real journalists." Instead she introduces me to Sally, the Plaza's manager and a former Manhattan actress. Sally points out the window and says, "Back in the 1800s, there was a windmill out in the square. It was a popular spot for hangings every Sunday, and families would bring their kids to watch." She hooks her arm through mine and walks me outside to gaze at the moonlit square. "The hangings got so popular, kids would bring their dogs and cats to hang. Can you believe that? Hardcore, man. I mean, I'm from New York but that is hardcore."

The gang drifts into Byron T's saloon. It's a narrow antique marvel where, according to the Plaza's Web site, Doc Holliday shot a fellow for cheating him at cards. I shake hands with Amelia Rosner, a deadpan munchkin from New York with a wicked sense of humor. Amelia's here to make a speech about alt.obituaries, a celebrity death-watch newsgroup. I mention that Las Vegas used to celebrate public hangings in the old square. Her husband shrugs and says, "That's America. That's what we do."

Friday morning, June 4th:

I enter the tearoom and plop down at Amelia's table. She's sitting with Caroline Richmond, a little old lady in a bright orange muumuu. Caroline's wearing elaborate red eyeglass frames that spell LOOK, the round prescription lenses filling in the middle two letters. Whenever she turns her head, the LOOK swivels with her, commanding all of us to stare.

Caroline is a part-time obituary writer with a specialty. "I only do medical doctors," she says, adding, "I particularly enjoy writing about doctors who die from the ailment they consider to be their specialty."

We're joined by Catherine, a grumpy-looking woman who writes for The Toronto Star. Perhaps because I'm the only other Canadian, she starts hacking on me for not wearing my conference I.D. "Where's your name tag? Get it together," she teases, then gives me a hard time as I struggle to get out my pen. "I thought you wanted to be a writer. C'mon, c'mon, get with it."

I ask Catherine how long she's been an obituary writer, but this only serves to anger her. "I'm not an obituary writer. I'm a journalist. I reviewed films for years. Wrote a book. Won awards. I teach at Ryerson." Amelia and I share a 'somebody's defensive' look. Then Catherine admits she does write obituaries, but defends her job by saying, "We tell stories from beginning to middle to end, and you don't get to do that in other newspaper departments."

The conference is about to start. We file into a creepy boardroom with brick walls, a high ceiling, and a skylight with clumps of dirt on top of it. It's like we're in an underground crypt, buried alive with free coffee and a microphone.

There are thirty-six delegates squeezed around two long tables: sixteen men in checkered shirts, and twenty-two women in blouses and dangling earrings. Make that twenty-one. Claire Martin, obit writer for The Denver Post, has brought her ten-year-old daughter, Cordelia. For the next two days, Cordelia will sit patiently, take copious notes, and like her mother, never smile.

Carolyn starts the conference by proudly announcing that, in the conference's six-year history, four pairs of obit delegates have hooked up during the event, and that some of them have gone on to marry. We all cheer. She then introduces the kickoff speaker, Tim Bullamore, a "freelance obituary writer" from Bath, England, the site of next year's conference in June 2005. His speech is titled Dying on the Job: Timing is Everything.

Tim launches into an affectionate tribute to Rich Pearson, The Washington Post's obit editor who died shortly after last year's conference. He reads Rich's last obituary, for the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, whom Rich described as "unquestionably evil and perversely fascinating." Of the estimated 200,000 Ugandans that Amin tortured to death or executed, Rich wrote that "Most victims were shot, but prominent ones were beheaded and their heads reportedly stored in a freezer in Mr. Amin's residence. Mr. Amin would periodically remove them from the freezer, place them around his dinner table, and hold conversations with them."

Everybody laughs except for little Cordelia, who takes notes. Tim's on a roll now and spends the next forty minutes regaling us with sarcastic obituaries and touting "great ways to go." He reminds us of the jogging guru Jim Fixx who died while jogging. He recalls diet guru Dr. Atkins, who supposedly died from slipping on ice but it was "some time later -- long after the obituaries had been printed -- that the truth emerged. Doctor 'I can make you slim' Atkins couldn't get up. He wasn't just large. He wasn't even fat. He was obese."

Like a conductor reaching a crescendo, Tim flings out both his arms and exclaims, "We're not writing for the family. We're writing for the reader!"

He urges the obituarists to stop tiptoeing around how somebody died. He mentions a Welsh politician who experienced "corpus interruptus" during a visit with a prostitute: "The tabloids quoted her saying, 'I stripped to my G-string and gave him oral sex. He said 'You got me excited' ... The next minute he hit the floor.' What did our serene obituary pages report about Dr. Williams's death? Nothing. The Telegraph said, 'He died.' The Times said, 'He was found dead.' Apparently it was Williams's first time in such an establishment. Like phooey it was. Sixty-two-year-old men don't go to brothels for the first time. His visit told you as much about the man as many other great things he did. He was human. He had weaknesses. He liked sex with strangers." Amelia, the dead-celebrity watcher, snorts at this one.

Somebody asks Tim what he thinks about self-written 'auto-obits'. He pooh-poohs them, and another British guy growls that they're "just about 'What a fine chap I was'." He asks us how many people here have penned their own obits. Only four hands go up, including my own.

The next speaker is Adam Bernstein from The Washington Post, which runs 6,000 obituaries a year. As he walks to the microphone, the blood drains from my face: Adam's a dead ringer for my old nemesis Dieter. I shrink in my seat and try to avoid eye contact. For the next forty-five minutes, as Adam gives another tribute to Rich Pearson, his fallen mentor, all I can hear is Dieter warning me "Hegan, you dick -- ick -- ick -- ick, you'd better write your obituary -- ary -- ary -- ary."

Later, informs me that Adam/Dieter's speech was a hit. Highlights included tales of the farm-animal expert whom the Post referred to as a "cow vagina measurement specialist," and "the psychiatrist who drowned in his own sensory deprivation tank."

Seven more speakers hit the podium. One guy, Spencer, is a Dallas jingle writer who penned the theme to the kids show My Little Pony and is billed as an 'Obituarist and Bon Vivant'. Spencer says the first rule of obituary writing is to "make sure they're dead because it'll be really embarrassing if they're not." I write this down in capital letters and underline it twice.

Spencer is followed by a grim-faced San Francisco crime reporter who, after witnessing years of brutal murder victims, claims "obituaries became soothing by contrast."

Next there's an awkward discussion about work stress, led by touchy-feely obituarists. One of the female participants asks us, "Does anyone cry on the job?" only to be met by deafening silence, then muffled snickers from the Brits. A Minnesota woman says she has two work friends who are her "sanity breaks." "But they're retiring in six weeks," she says, "so I don't know what I'll do." An English participant counters, "Look, you don't expect undertakers to well up each time someone dies. It's our job."

Batting cleanup is the little old English LOOK lady. Unfortunately the microphone renders her incomprehensible and none of us have any idea what she's bogging on about. The room sags. Still, like doctors dreaming of tee-offs while pretending to listen to patients, we do our best to encourage her, smiling or frowning where we think we're supposed to. At 4 p.m., the LOOK lady wraps up and we adjourn to the bar.

There I meet James and Lynn, the Mellow New Age Hearse Couple. I compliment their sweet-looking ride and James tells me they bought it on eBay for $2,000. Lynn explains that Morgan Ashby Carter, the name stencilled on the window, is her obit-writing nom de plume. James says they're heading to the graveyard and offers to take me along.

I climb into the back with Sara and Diane, two self-proclaimed "Egyptologists and breast cancer survivors." Sara lays in the coffin and laughs. Then we're off.

Just outside the Montefiore Cemetery, there's an abandoned house with an election sign that reads 'Howard Dean for America'. We park and climb out the back of the hearse, as if we're corpses making a last-minute comeback. Strolling past ill-tended graves, we whisper pointlessly and smile at silly names. As if channelling a Navajo elder, James points to the wall and says, "Why have a wall around a cemetery? Is that to keep people out or to keep people in?" We nod sagely. I have no idea what he's talking about.

Now that we're safely away from the Crypt, the talk shifts to gossip. Lynn and Sara feel the conference focuses too much on theory and not enough on practice. Sara is tired of hearing people read obituaries. Instead, she says, "it should be devoted to 'let's write an obituary.' Break up into groups of three and write it. Wouldn't that be so cool?" Lynn agrees there should be writing workshops but warns, "Then there are some people, like Gail from Philadelphia, who thinks that she writes these perfect obituaries." Like school kids, Sara and Diane chime in on "perfect."

It's 10:42 p.m. I'm back at the hotel and there's a horse tied to the bandstand in the public square. This really is a one-horse town. I buy three Cuba libres in the saloon and join Ashlee and Adam/Dieter on the lobby couch. She won't outright say it, but I suspect Ashlee doesn't like the Hearse Couple. When I ask her as much, Adam/Dieter chips in, "Yeah, I got a weird vibe from those two. I like to go with my gut. My first impression wasn't good." As if he is one to talk. Just like Dieter, his shirt's always tucked in and he's got an eerie, quiet calm. The more I drink, the more I get the feeling he's staring right through me, as though he can see my future and knows exactly how I'm going to die.

We're joined by Christopher, a silver-mustachioed Brit wearing cream loafers and ball-hugging slacks. When I ask him why he's here, he tells me The Toronto Star's foreign editor assigned him to cover the conference. Uh-oh. That's the same paper that assigned Catherine, the obituary writer who's "not an obituary writer." And here she comes. She looks choked.

Red-faced and slurring from champagne, Christopher pronounces, "I don't care if I get the thing published as long as I get paid." This sets Catherine to full boil. She gets in his face, says something short and sharp, then storms off to her room. Ashlee and I share a nervous look. It's like we're extras in an episode of Murder, She Wrote. By the time this weekend's finished, somebody could get their head smashed in with a typewriter.

It's the perfect time to head for bed. Besides, Adam/Dieter looks like he wants to flirt with Ashlee. And if I've learned one thing from my reckless youth, it's that you never cockblock a Dieter.

Saturday morning, June 5th:

Plenty of hangovers in the Crypt. Looking especially delicate, Ashlee grabs the mike and says, "You people party like rock stars." We laugh and growl our approval, tongues husky from the debauchery.

The first speaker, Trudi Hahn from Minneapolis, has a keen interest in writing accurate obits for military vets, POWs, and anti-war activists. Her speech is called Dad Fought With Patton but could be subtitled How to Handle Widows Who Believed Their Dead Husband's Lies About His Heroic War Achievements.

Ever vigilant, Judi explains, "Sometimes the family knows the facts but its members lie deliberately." She says one of the big lies (or 'disputes') is over who was holding the dead man's hand when he kicked the bucket. However, she says most often "families are merely muddled at a time of great stress." Quoting a psychiatrist who's studied grief, Trudi continues, "Someone who has just lost a loved one can be so impaired they seem to be mentally retarded."

At 10 a.m., Amelia Rosner stands up to talk about her newsgroup for people who like to guess which celebrities will die next. She says "we scooped the world on Linda McCartney," then tells us "some "prominent" Canadians died yesterday, including celebrity interviewer Brian Linehan. Catherine catches my eye and says, "Canadians are dropping like flies." I hope that's not a threat.

Next up is Andrew McKie, obituary editor for The Daily Telegraph in London. Short, chatty, and canny as a whip, he's wearing cowboy boots and a black Stetson. At thirty-five, he's the second-youngest writer here, edged out by Adam/Dieter, twenty-nine. Last night, the ever-convivial McKie drank a forty-ounce glass of margarita. Then he staggered out to the bandstand where he says "I kissed that horse for fifteen minutes."

Eschewing the microphone, Andrew booms out a magnificent speech on the perils of being too kind to the deceased. He advises us that we "should not be afraid to make judgements" and says "I never bother with the cause of death unless they're younger or it's interesting or ludicrous." He says we should "show not tell," to which Catherine says in my direction, "Yes, show don't tell. That's my thing." Andrew does impressions, quotes hilarious obituaries entirely from memory, then gives a final elfin grin, and concludes, "This really is the best job in the world, isn't it?"

Next, Diane the Egyptologist stands up to read an ancient obit about a guy named Harkhuf. She says the obit "lists his terrible actions" and "reports his good deeds," carved into Harkhuf's tomb over four thousand years ago. And if I understand Diana correctly, this makes it the world's oldest known obituary. It was also written by Harkhuf himself, which proves that auto-obits are nothing special.

The final item on the conference agenda is From 9/11 to Baghdad and Beyond: World Attitudes Toward Recognition of Death. Panelists include poker-faced Claire from The Denver Post, and Steve Miller from The New York Sun, who edited Good Bye!, a dormant journal devoted to beautifully sarcastic obituaries.

Today, Steve is here to be somber. He escaped from the 80th floor of the World Trade Center's south tower just before it collapsed. For the next hour, the Crypt gets mired in a depressing debate over 9/11, The New York Times' series of victim obits entitled ‘Portraits of Grief’, and how journalists should cover U.S. casualties in Iraq.

It’s a total downer and the Republicans and Democrats start getting snippy with one another. The My Little Pony guy gets riled up when Andrew proclaims "I firmly supported invading Iraq," though neither one of them looks like he could punch his way out of a wet paper coffin. Catherine scowls at Andrew. Nobody's having fun any more. To pass the time, I begin to rewrite my obituary: "Ken Hegan was sadly bored to death at the end of the 6th Once-Great Obituary Writers Conference." The panel finally wheezes to a halt at 3 p.m. Claire and her daughter bolt for freedom and the rest of the Crypt is itching to split.

But then something magical happens.

Amelia and Steve burst into the room, grinning from ear to ear. Steve punches the air with both fists and shouts, "Stop the presses, stop the presses! Reagan is dead!"

The obit writers are stunned, blurting "Whoa," "Holy shit," and "Woohoo!" Adam/Dieter bolts out the door, sprinting for the hotel's only pay phone. Andrew's hot on his heels. Adam/Dieter grabs the receiver first, so Andrew runs upstairs to call his London staff.

Meanwhile, the Crypt is crackling with adrenaline. Ashlee shouts, "Our first celebrity death!" Another woman grabs my arm and says, "Isn't this fantastic?" "It's perfect. Timing is everything," says Carolyn Gilbert, a Texan Democrat who looks positively tickled. I ask Amelia how she knew to check on Reagan's status. She shrugs and says, "I just had a feeling."

I take a last look around at these smiling sentinels of death. The rifts have healed. The tension's vanished. Be they liberal or conservative, Ronald Reagan has united them all, in a way he never could when he was still alive and kicking.

-30-

Ken Hegan is a Vancouver journalist & filmmaker who, thanks to Dieter, has had an unlisted number since 1986.