STORES Magazine - July 2008 - (Page 98)

POSTSCRIPT thelastlaugh Rest in Pringles FREDRIC BAUR, the man who created the iconic Pringles can, had a dying wish: to take his invention with him to the grave. So when the 89-year-old Baur died in May after a battle with Alzheimer’s, a portion of his ashes was buried in a can of Pringles: The rest was placed in a more traditional urn. As a chemist and food storage technician for Procter & Gamble, Baur specialized in research and development and quality control. He requested the burial arrangement because he was proud of his design, according to his son Lawrence. He developed many products for P&G, including frying oils and a freeze-dried ice cream, but the tube-shaped container designed to hold the stackable potato crisps was his proudest accomplishment. He filed for a patent for the Pringles container and for the method of packaging the chips in 1966; it was granted in 1970. loved ones with a family heirloom, there’s LifeGem – a company that converts a portion of someone’s remains into a man-made diamond. All this comes as no surprise to Matt Thornhill, co-president of the Boomer Project. “Every phase of life they get to, they transform,” he says. “As they go out on their final hurrah, boomers do it differently.” Two Crimes in One THERE’S a time and a place for everything. It seems, however, that this lesson was lost on two thieves in Arvada, Colo., who wore thongs to the convenience store they were robbing. No, they weren’t trying to distract employees to allow an accomplice to make off with merchandise: they wore the unmentionables as face masks to disguise their identities. It didn’t work. They stole a stash of cash and cigarettes, which one man stuffed into a pink backpack. A surveillance video released by police left little to the imagination, especially since the thongs barely covered the men’s noses. Their mouths, chins – even tattoos — were exposed. The pair turned themselves in a few days later. If they were going to raid their girlfriend’s lingerie drawers, it would seem there had to be better choices – boy-cut briefs, high-cut bikinis – even the old standard, pantyhose. And remember, this was in Colorado: Didn’t anyone think to wear a ski mask? Boomers Reinvent the Last Frontier SHORTLY AFTER wrapping up last month’s cover story, “Five Things You Don’t Know About Baby Boomers,” another obscure tidbit surfaced: Some boomers have no intention of going gently into the afterlife. A small but growing percentage of this pace-setting generation are opting for final resting places that are, shall we say, unusual. According to Iconoculture, deep sea and deep space are two final destinations that are becoming increasingly popular. Eternal Reefs, an Atlanta-based company, mixes cremated remains into a concrete mixture used to cast artificial reef formations. The artificial reefs are dedicated as permanent memorials and provide an environmentally enhanced approach to memorializing a loved one. The Eternal Ascent Society sends ashes up in a weather balloon, which eventually disintegrates and releases the remains. Meanwhile, Space Services will send a symbolic portion of a loved one’s cremated remains into the Earth’s orbit, onto the lunar surface or into deep space. Beginning in 2010, Space Services says it will arrange for burial on the moon. And for baby boomers who prefer to leave their 98 STORES / JUNE 2008 WWW.STORES.ORG © The New Yorker Collection 2004 Jack Ziegler from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved. http://cartoonbank.com http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - July 2008

STORES Magazine - July 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Dearth of Retail Creativity What Shoppers Think Wow, Is That a Wawa? 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Merchandising Strategy Concept2Watch Point of Sale Outsourcing Human Resources Top 100 Retailers Store Design RFID IT Operations Systems Managements LP Vantage Point Newsbeat Cover Story Emergency Response Systems Background Checks LOEB Retail Letter Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

STORES Magazine - July 2008

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