LITTLE ROCK — It’s good to see that Donald Trump is taking steps to get into the cemetery business. After being such a lousy birther, I’m rooting for Trump to have some success as a deather.
Trump’s planning a 500-grave cemetery on land near a golf course he owns in New Jersey. The idea is that golfers who already pay a lifetime membership at the course would pay an additional $20,000 a year for a . . . er, um, a death-time membership?
Pairing golf with death makes sense, considering that they both involve long, meandering slogs that lead to a hole in the ground. Golf is a game that prizes respectful silence, a nice feature for a cemetery’s neighbor. Let us putt.
If Trump’s cemetery near the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster pans out, maybe folks in South Florida will get the next Trump cemetery at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.
Or better yet, a graveyard on the back lawn of Mar-a-Lago. There’s got to be enough room on that big lawn to bury half the club members. Trump will probably need a variance from the town, which will insist on reviewing the plans for the construction of pearly gates.
But it will be worth it. I’m guessing a Trump cemetery would have to be special.
The prime spots would be in the billionaires’ section. The millionaires would get whatever shade is left, and finally the remaining plots would be reserved for the first wives.
And everybody gets buried with a phone. Tomb service.
Trump’s a great marketer who has put his name on everything from neckties to bottled water to mattresses. I’m sure his line of interment products won’t be far behind.
Suggested name for the product line: Trump’s Eternal Best.
Maybe Trump can even do some TV ads for his cemetery. I can see him looking steely eyed at the camera, then pointing his finger and saying, “You’re expired!”
The cemetery business also will open up some exciting cross-promotional opportunities with his reality-television career: Crematorium Apprentice.
The death business will be a nice change of pace for Trump. Getting him to focus on a classy way to spend eternity will be a refreshing detour from his delusional excursions into American political life.
Recently, he made a big show of hyping his endorsement of a Republican presidential candidate, as if he held enviable sway in such matters. Last month, a Pew Research Center survey found that the net effect of a Trump endorsement was that Republicans were more likely to vote against the candidate he endorsed. And among all voters, that gap was more than 3 to 1, the study found.
So political life isn’t his forte.
America’s undertaker, though, might just take Trump to new heights. Or depths.
Editorial, Pages 10 on 02/13/2012