KFI:
Towards the end of his 82-year-long life, when Joseph A. Heller Jr.‘s doctor told his daughters “your father is a very sick man,” they responded, “You have no idea.” That’s the hilarious kind of people who wrote a 1,300 word obituary that pays tribute to their prankster father in the best way. Monique, Michelle and Lisette Heller penned an obit filled with digs and jokes at their dad’s expense that he undoubtedly would have loved. In fact, the opening line of the piece is “Joe Heller made his last undignified and largely irreverent gesture on September 8, 2019, signing off on a life, in his words, ‘generally well-lived and with few regrets.'” From there, the emotional piece speaks of Joseph’s youth, growing up in New Haven, Connecticut during the Great Depression, which “shaped Joe’s formative years and resulted in a lifetime of frugality, hoarding and cheap mischief, often at the expense of others.”
They go on to describe some of the pranks he pulled in his lifetime, including ones that sought vengeance on lunch thieves with “laxative-laced chocolate cake and excrement meatloaf sandwiches.” He even named his first dog “Fart” so that his mom would have to yell the dog’s name to have it come to her.
They also wrote that Heller “left his family with a house full of crap, 300 pounds of birdseed and dead houseplants that they have no idea what to do with,” and that Heller was preceded in death by his pet fish, Jack, “who we found in the freezer last week.” MORE
…this would seem a fitting dirge for his funeral…
https://youtu.be/L2Wx230gYJw
“…For life is quite absurd,
And death’s the final word.
You must always face the curtain with a bow!
Forget about your sin — give the audience a grin,
Enjoy it, it’s the last chance anyhow!
So always look on the bright side of death!
Just before you draw your terminal breath.
Life’s a piece of shit,
When you look at it.
Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke, it’s true,
You’ll see it’s all a show,
Keep ’em laughing as you go.
Just remember that the last laugh is on you!
And always look on the bright side of life”
-“Always Look at the Bright Side of Life “, Eric Idle (Monty Python)
Just our luck, Joe Heller went to Heaven.
We would have enjoyed some new material other than Redd Foxx and Milton Berle.
Article link to full obit didn’t work. Try this.
https://rwwfh.com/tribute/details/1172/Joseph-Heller-Jr/obituary.html
I hope someone writes a similarly irreverent obit about me some day. But not too soon, thank
you.
“He even named his first dog “Fart” so that his mom would have to yell the dog’s name to have it come to her.”
funny …. I can hear it now … “come fart, come fart”
… same reason I named my first family dog ‘Stains’
“I’m not dead yet”
monty python
wow. classy guy.
Hilarious obit. It seems Mr. Heller lived a full and wonderful life. He was obviously loved by his family and must have been a character. You can tell by his photo, the wheels of mischief are spinning behind those eyes.
May God bless him and take Joe’s soul into His loving arms…and then sit next to Joe on a barstool with the Best Beer Ever and tell each other jokes til they’re in tears
Love this. On the obit site, I looked at the photos and someone posted a billboard in his honor. A billboard! RIP, Joe. 🙂