Joe Klockgether’s Antics Belie a Mortician’s Image

That Joe A. Klockgether Jr. He’s really something.

For instance, he has a framed painting of his feet on the office wall. Just the naked feet. “I thought it would be different,” he said with a serious expression.

Then there are the 600 empty beer cans from all parts of the world, some sitting on shelves in the office. “I’m really a small collector,” he observed. “I have a friend who has 3,000 beer cans.”

But he gets his biggest kicks after he shows visitors into the office and sits them down next to Frankenstein’s monster.

“I pretend not to be looking, but when they notice the monster, it’s usually hilarious,” said Klockgether, 49, who owns and operates Renaker-Klockgether Mortuary next to his private office in Buena Park. He plans to expand the mortuary chapel next year to include wedding services.

Getting his Frankenstein’s monster took a bit of luck. “I heard the new owners of the Wax Museum were going to replace the old monster, so I made an offer for him which was accepted,” he said. “I thought it would be a real kick to have him.”

A museum spokesman said that selling a wax figure (actually they are made of fiberglass) is unusual and that the company doesn’t plan to do it very often.

“When I bought the monster for $200 from the Wax Museum,” Klockgether said, “my intention was to loan it to the local Boys’ Club for a Halloween display as well as to set it up at my home for our Halloween trick or treaters.” He did both, as well as give the club a casket for its display.

Buying the monster gave him the opportunity to dispel the stereotype people have of morticians. “Why even my daughter thought I only held funerals on dark and rainy nights,” he said. “We don’t all wear black suits, we enjoy people and hardly fit the image of morticians the movies depict.”

Actually, Klockgether thinks the monster is just right, sort of, as a watchdog in his office. “Can you imagine someone looking in the window and seeing Frankie sitting here?” he asked.

Frankie? “That’s what I call him,” said Klockgether, who admits that he occasionally talks to the monster. “I say hello and good night to him.”

Kim Garber said it’s not difficult hiring a Santa Claus these days for community rent-a-Santa programs. “I have people who would pay us to play Santa,” said Garber, who directs the Buena Park Parks and Recreation program that rents out Santa Clauses for $20 a half hour. “They think it’s a rare privilege to play Santa.”

Ever wonder how names happen?

Well, one example is the Anaheim Fire Department. It bought five new fire trucks with engines in the back, like Volkswagens, to eliminate noise from the powerful motors that officials say have caused some firemen not to hear radio transmissions and lose hearing. Jeff R. Bowman, 34, Anaheim’s new fire chief, who was one of the truck designers, actually gave the truck its name. He dubbed it a “hush pumper,” but not for the apparent reason.

“While we were talking about the new design,” said Bowman, who may be the county’s youngest fire chief, “everyone was talking about this being a hush-hush project so. . . . “

Barbara Denny of La Palma is just about the fastest draw in these parts--which may have helped her selection to the Alabama-based Southpaw International Left-handers Hall of Fame.

It was “in recognition of significant contributions to left-handers . . . “ said the certificate signed by Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

A grandmother and mother of four, Denny earned her notoriety by drawing caricatures at the rate of one a minute, and she claims that some of her artwork is hanging in the Pentagon in Washington.

“This award was a big surprise to me,” she said, adding that she isn’t even a member of the left-handers association. “But I’m in good company. That baseball player, or whatever sport he plays, George Brett, was named leftie of the year.”

Acknowledgments--Tustin attorney Sylvia Paoli, who holds a commercial pilot’s license and is a tireless worker for the Fullerton chapter of the Ninety-Nines, was named Pilot of the Year by the group’s Southwest Section.