It has often been said that when life gives you lemons you make lemonade. In Nederland, Colorado when a Norwegian family gave them a frozen dead guy, they decided to create a festival. The Frozen Dead Guy Days is a festival that’s 10-years-old and attracts up to 15,000 people a year to that small town. Unfortunately, the Nederland Area Chamber of Commerce in Colorado is now offering to sell the rights to the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival. It seems the event has become too expensive and their Chamber of Commerce feels an event company could do a better job of running it. I’m sure there’s a mortuary somewhere that would just love to sponsor this type of celebration.
I want to point out an obvious benefit of living in a capitalistic society is the ability for small towns to make annual income from having a frozen dead guy staying within their municipality. I can only imagine this would peak the interest of people with frozen relatives all over the world. What’s next? Will there soon be a conference to tell people the best way to market their dead frozen relatives to entertainment companies?
“Annual income is down in our town. What can we do?”
“Do you know if any of your residents has a frozen dead relative?”
“Oh, I’m sure we could find someone who does.”
“Great, then all you need is to have a festival in honor of that frozen dead person. This will bring in vast amounts of money to your town. There is already a Dead Guy Days festival in Colorado. If you have a frozen dead lady festival your town will really stand out.”
“That’s a great idea.”
It all started in 1989 when a Norwegian citizen named Trygve Bauge brought the corpse of his dead grandfather, Bredo Morstol, to the United States. The grandfather had died when he was 89-years-old. The body was preserved in dry ice and eventually stored in liquid nitrogen. In 1993 the frozen dead grandfather Bredo was transported to a town in Nederland in Colorado, where Trygve and his mother planned to create their own cryonics facility.
“Grandfather has died. I don’t know where to bury him.”
“Why would we want to bury grandfather? I say we pack him in dry ice and take him to the United States. In time science will find out the cause of what made him pass away and then he can come back to life.”
“He was 89-years-old when he died. Why would he want to come back to life at that age?”
“We both know how much he loved ice fishing.”
“You have a point.”
The story only gets better. Trygve was deported because he overstayed his visa. His mother, named Aud, continued keeping the frozen grandfather in a shack behind her unfinished house. Eventually Aud was evicted from her home for violations of local ordinances associated with living in an unfinished house. Being forced to leave her home with her frozen dead grandfather in a shed behind her house put Aud in a rather difficult situation. She told her story to a reporter, who went to city hall with the story. These events caused city hall to create a new set of Municipal Codes making it illegal for people to keep dead bodies on their property. Putting on a display of true compassion the local government made an exception for the frozen Norwegian dead guy, Bredo. He was their one and only legally frozen dead guy.
In 2002 a shed supplier and a Denver radio station built a new home for their favorite frozen dead resident and the Dead Guy Days festival was started. I’m sure the same people who go to Pennsylvania every year to see a groundhog predict the weather also make their way to Colorado for the celebration of a frozen dead guy.
Some of the highlights of the festival are the Parade of hearses and coffin races. There is also ice turkey bowling, brain freeze contest and a frozen T-Shirt contest. The most popular part of the festival is the tour to see Nederland’s frozen dead celebrity, Bredo Morstol, at his shed.
“These are some pictures from our vacation. Here we are at a Denver Nuggets game, skiing at Vale and this is one of us next to Nederland’s frozen dead guy.”
“What?”
“It was easier to take a picture with than that groundhog from Pennsylvania.”
“I can only imagine.”
Now the city of Nederland wants to sell the rights to the festival. If you buy the rights to the festival I hope you get the actual frozen dead guy. I don’t think it would be much of a Frozen Dead Guy Days festival without the actual frozen dead guy. I wonder if you can just supply your own? Wouldn’t it be something if they held such a festival in a place like Death Valley?
I believe what people like about this festival is how it’s unique and creative. It deals with the uncomfortable subject of death in a very comfortable way. I hope someone does buy the rights and continues the annual tradition. If people can have fun celebrating groundhog predicting the weather for over a hundred years, I’m sure we can celebrate a frozen dead guy even longer.
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