It wasn't my first funeral. But it was the first when I'd been considered enough of a "grown-up" to wander around unsupervised before the service started.

My cousin Jimmy was let off the leash, too, and after we paid our respects to Uncle Roy, we decided to kill some time exploring the vast spaces of Fox & Weeks Funeral Home in downtown Savannah.

Downstairs was pretty dull, basically a department store for the death business. We checked out the huge selection of display coffins and gawked at ornate guest registers and a scant sampling of urns.

We figured upstairs might be more entertaining and walked up an ornate stairway to the second floor of what appeared to have once been a huge home. The doors to most of the rooms were locked. One wasn't. I have since wished it had been.

My cousin and I weren't expecting anything exciting, but once we got a peek inside, we came close to wetting out britches.

At the time, neither of us knew what an embalming room was. We learned quickly when we walked in and saw a dead man lying naked on a stainless steel table. Our collective gasps for breath echoed across the room as we took in the frightening sight.

A cloth was neatly placed over the person's private parts, but the sight of a lifeless loved one was enough to send us sailing downstairs as fast as we could go.

My knees knocked themselves black and blue as I sat beside my folks during the service while the preacher and some fellow Shriners went on and on about Uncle Roy.

I returned to that same funeral home several more times over the years but was never tempted to tour the second floor again.

It's not one of my fondest memories, but it's one of the most vivid. And that scary day taught me a good lesson. Two, actually. First, never go somewhere you haven't been invited. Second, that even in an embalming room, professional funeral workers do their best to preserve the dignity of the deceased.

Which is why the City of Gainesville, Fla., should consider hiring funeral home pros to write traffic tickets on city streets.

Florida news sources report that a man, later identified as John Waldo, left home recently for reasons unknown. Waldo was not reported missing for five days. But he was not found until 12 days after he left home. That's when a Gainesville resident called to complain about a car that had been parked in front of her home for several days.

When cops checked it out, they found Mr. Waldo's body in the back seat. Not surprisingly, citizens wondered why no one had noticed Waldo sooner, since the car was papered with not one, not two, but seven separate parking tickets while Waldo was inside.

Since I've never posted traffic tickets, I wouldn't know if checking a car's contents is a good practice or not. And I might not pay attention to a car with two or three tickets since I've collected that many myself for improper parking over a long weekend.

But seven tickets might cause me to give that car a second look.

A Gainesville official explained that the ticket-givers were not law enforcement officials trained to look for suspicious things, like back seat bodies. They are employed by the city's public works department, which normally toils on roads and bridges. Maybe if Waldo had been a pothole, he'd have been noticed.

Too bad funeral home workers weren't passing out tickets. Bet they'd have noticed the "problem." I heard later from his brother that Waldo had a nice family funeral. That's good.

I'm glad John Waldo was found. And I hope the folks giving out traffic tickets in Gainesville will be more observant in the future. This was one time when nobody should have been asking "Where's Waldo?"

(Send your e-mail comments to: alex@ newnan.com)