Bill Peinhardt might possess a lifetime’s knowledge of medicine, but don’t ask him to distinguish between a casket and a coffin. “I don’t know the difference!” says the well-known retired physician and lifelong Cullman native. “Those terms may be interchangeable; I’m not sure.
I do know the thing they put it in is called a ‘vault.’ I don’t really like the idea of that, because as far as I’m concerned, I’d be happy to just put it in the dirt and let it all go back to nature.” In fairness to Dr.
Peinhardt, until we dug in to find out why Peinhardt — a gifted woodworker with a well-equipped basement wood shop — decided to build his own coffin (the proper term, as it turns out), we didn’t know the difference either. A casket is what you’re likely to see at the majority of present-day funerals: big, rectangular, fitted with a hinged lid split so that the lower part of a body can remain covered while the head and torso are still visible. Bill’s bespoke burial vessel, though, is far less fussy, and conforms to the conventional description of a “coffin.
” It’s made of pine, it’s got a one-piece lid that someone (not Peinhardt) will have to nail shut with handmade iron nails, and it has six sides instead of four: Just like the coffins you’ve seen in old Golden-Age horror movies about vampires, it’s widest at the shoulders, but tapers inward at slight angles toward the feet and head. For the past 10 or 15 years (He can’t quite remember w.
