The Finite Times

Harlem, NY (FiniteTimes.com) – When Ella Mae Daniels turned up at the Apollo Theater to pay her last respects to Godfather of Soul James Brown, she, along with every other mourner, was shocked.

“They kept saying ‘He look bad, lordy he look bad,’ so I braced myself. Still, I almost fainted when I looked in that box and sweet James looked like a bid dead honky,” Daniels recalled.

About one hundred and fifty mourners had already filed past the coffin before one finally had the nerve to say “Niggah, that ain’t James Brown. That Gerald Ford!” Officials in charge of the funeral proceedings made a hasty call to Washington where the mix-up was confirmed.

“It came as a bit of a shock to us, sure,” said a State funeral source who requested anonymity. “I mean, it’s an ex-president, right? Why would you even think you had to look in the box to check? My bad, I guess.”

The source wouldn’t disclose exactly how the mix-up occurred, but pointed to the fact that Brown’s body left his funeral home in a black Ford while Ford’s left his in a brown vehicle, the make of which has not been released by the Secret Service, as a possibility.

“Assuming that Brown’s black Ford was traveling east at 45 miles per hour, while Ford’s black whatever was traveling west at 55 miles per hour… well, it gets complicated fast, doesn’t it,” said the source.

Officials in both Harlem and Washington quickly switched the two bodies and vowed to lob crushing fines at anyone found to be responsible. Both funerals are expected to go off as scheduled.

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