Frank Sinatra’s gravestone epitaph optimistically proclaims, “The Best is Yet to Come.” Johnny Cash’s memorial, maybe contemplating Lucifer and St. Peter vying for his presence, wryly notes “I Walk the Line” as a final farewell. Caustic comedian Rodney Dangerfield saw things from the point-of-view of his new neighbors with his epitaph, “There Goes the Neighborhood.” Some epitaphs can be sweet (e.g., George Burns and Gracie Allen’s stage epitaph, “Together Again”); some feature an iconic quote associated solely with the departed (e.g., Edgar Allan Poe’s “Quoth the Raven, Nevermore”). But a few are so damned clever that the deceased might avoid damnation for that alone. How could Mel Blanc, the voice of Porky the Pig for Looney Tunes, get consigned to hell with a gravestone that reads, “That’s All, Folks”?
Since only one President (Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th President) has regained the office after losing a try for a second term, a sitting President defeated in a subsequent election would invite a GRAVESTONE EPITATH of his administration and life in the public eye. President Trump, never shy in making things center on himself, will probably come up with some doozies if and when he’s unceremoniously dumped in November’s election.
Too petulant to opt for something historical (King Arthur’s “Once and Future King”) or even positive but rather benign (“I Did It My Way”), he’d probably, in character, choose from one of the in-your-face epitaphs below, which others might counter with a simple, “Here LIES the Trump Administration: 2016-2020”:
∙ Obstruction? Collusion?
A Witch-Hunt Illusion!
.∙ Hell with 21-Gun Salute: Want
Five Million Gun NRA Salute!
.∙ No Fake News: Here to Make
Afterlife Great Again!
.Sanctuary City Here? No Need
If Bad Guys Kept Caged!
.∙ Hell? Any Worse than P.R., Detroit,
Baltimore, or a Shithole Country!
.∙ Okay, N.F.L. Thugs:
Kneel Here!
.∙ Just in Case: Maybe Climate
Change Down Below?
.∙ Saudi Benefactors: Paradise Has Beautiful
Maidens, Good Food, and Flowing Water:
With Golf, Club Mar-a-Lago?
.∙ Vaccinated People Tombstones Surround
Me – Some Probably with Autism!
.∙ If Heaven’s Like 2016 Russia,
I’m In Like Flynn!
.∙ No RIP for Hillary, Pocahontas, Horseface, &
Other Broads Who Tarnished My Name
Where Mr. Patriarchy, Lucifer, Rules!
.An Alternative Fact: Me Too!
.The Donald’s Life Matters!
.∙ St. Pete, Don’t Want Traitors Here:
Hire ‘em? Fire ‘em, Literally!
.∙ Waving at House “Gang of Four” As
They Fly Broomsticks Home to
Broken, Crime-Infested Places!
.∙ Words to Live By: Life’s Like
Pussy — Just Grab It!
.∙ Wasn’t Kung Flu, or Disinfectant, Or My
Malaria Drug. Get Over It — Or Not!
.∙ Motto: “Keep It Up” – This Isn’t Even a
Confederate Monument to Raze!
.∙ Many Fine People on Both Sides –
.Boring, but, Will Choose Heaven!
.∙ Surrounded by Stiffs that Lefty Commies
& 9th Circuit Court Would Allow to Vote!
.∙ May a Drone or Navy Seal Take You Out
If You’re an Un-American Protester!
.∙ My Constitution Was Stronger than the Paper
Constitution I had Barr Redact. Or, was
That the Mueller Report?
.∙ Promised Korea “Fire and Fury Like the
World has Never Seen” if Rocket Man
Didn’t Back Down: Can Hell Top That?
.∙ Judgement Day? Don’t Want Obama Judge,
Even if Traitor Roberts Says No Such Thing!
.∙ St. Pete: Building A Wall Will Keep Out
Corona Virus, Gangs, Druggies, and
Rapists from Down There!
.∙ Could Full-fledged Obamacare Have
Saved Any of You From this Fate?
.∙ Who Needs W.H.O.? Or FEMA? Or, Even
Social Security. God, And I Can Speak for
Him, Helps Those Who Help Themselves!
.∙ I Didn’t Really Lose to the Puppet of
the Left, “Sleepy Joe Biden.” Voter
Fraud and Biased News Did Me In.
.∙ If, at my Resting Site, There’s Looting,
Grave Robbers Will Invite Shooting.
.∙ Commies and Lefties Wanted To Halt
Coal and Oil Mining to make Hell,
Their Obvious Destination, Less Hot.
.∙ Might Not Have Always Been Holy or Chaste,
Yet White Christians Know the Odds I Faced!
.∙ The Prophets of Doom Will Remain on Zoom,
Wearing masks, Distancing Six Feet, Wailing
Eternally in the Pearly Gates’ Waiting Room!
.∙ Anticipate Long Shut-Down if Archangels
Fail to Keep Uninvited non-Heaven
Citizens in Their Place!
.∙ Anti-POTUS Actions Aborted Chance
To Be Born Again,
If You Believe in that Stuff!
.∙ Death is Another Bad Conspiracy!
.At Least, Nobody Will Yammer
for Tax Returns!
.∙ NYET!
.So, to the Trump Administration, “That’s All, Folks!”