Imrem: Squabble a sad final chapter for Mr. Cub

This would be morbidly amusing if it didn't involve Ernie Banks.

It would prompt wisecracks like the ones over Ted Williams' head being cryogenically frozen in Phoenix.

Go ahead, tell me you have never told a joke about Williams' numb noggin, or at the very least giggled at one.

But this isn't funny. It's about one of Chicago's very own and very best. It's about Ernie Banks.

The saddest aspect for me is that I don't want my last memory of Mr. Cub to be this dispute over what to do with his remains.

Whatever happened to all those best wishes for Banks to rest in peace? The story of his life ended amid sweetness and his afterlife is beginning in sourness.

The next thing you know, Banks' body will be lost somewhere like a popup in the sun. A feature film titled "Weekend at Ernie's" will arrive at a theater near you. A late-night comic will say Tupac Shakur, Elvis Presley and Ernie Banks walk into a bar …

Sorry, I'm just trying to demonstrate what this could come to if the controversy doesn't cease immediately.

You probably have heard by now that Banks' estranged wife wants his body to remain buried. Meanwhile, a caretaker who says she managed his affairs late in life insists Mr. Cub wanted his cremated ashes to be sprinkled over Wrigley Field.

The nonsense re-inforces my preference for family and friends to bury me inside a dumpster in an alley behind a McDonald's and then for them to go in and have quarter pounders with cheese.

The Banks mess is so disheartening to those of us who appreciated him and what he stood for from the time he joined the Cubs in 1953 to the time he died last month.

The last thing I want - and presumably others want - is for the last memory of Ernie Banks to be the squabbling over his dead body.

Banks should be remembered for his 512 home runs and the graceful way he transitioned from shortstop to first baseman.

Then there should be the memory of Hall of Fame teammates Banks, Billy Williams, Fergie Jenkins and Ron Santo bonding on the Cubs.

Most of all there should be the memory of the smile that persisted during good times and bad over the six decades he let us know him.

Wait, no, we didn't really know him, did we? We like to think we know famous athletes and entertainers, but only a few of us get to really know any of them.

Like maybe I was the last to learn this, but it surprised me that Ernie Banks was married four times, divorced three times and about to be divorced a fourth time.

Being unlucky in love isn't a sin but it was a detail about Banks that I could have lived the rest of my life without being made aware of.

Now what I can really do without is this feuding and fussing between family and caretaker over what should be done with Banks' body.

Let's face it, even if it's only a sports fantasy, many felt that Ernie Banks was like family: early on a cousin, later on an uncle and finally a grandfather figure.

Banks seemed like the one who showed up with pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving dinner, the best gifts on Christmas morning and the loudest fireworks for the Fourth of July.

That's how I'd like to remember Banks rather than as a cartoon character suspended in air between a grave and an urn.

We wouldn't want the final memory of a relative to be a fight over what to do with his body not long after he died.

So please settle this matter before it becomes any sadder.

mimrem@dailyherald.com