Pre-Planning Your Funeral, Pre-school Story Time and Whole Lotta Love

1. The Beech Street Center is presenting a talk by a representative of a local undertaker on pre-planning your funeral. "Your Life, Your Legacy: Pre-need Funeral Planning" with Virginia Torti, a licensed funeral director from Boston Harborside Home of J.S. Waterman & Sons-Langone, takes place at 1:15 p.m. at the Center. Learn about the advantages of pre-planning, the different types of contracts (trusts, annuities, insurance policies, bank accounts and Medicaid consequences. Receive written information, and ask questions. Refreshments will be served and it is free to the entire community. 

While we are on the subject of funerals, did you know that a century ago, the "Ladies Home Journal" magazine, then the leading journal for the growing middle class housewife – orchestrated the greatest change in American funeral traditions? It was once the norm for people who died to be taken to the local undertaker then returned to their homes to be laid out in the front parlor for a viewing or wake before burial. Seeing this custom as distinctly old fashion and morbid, the magazine's writers campaigned for undertakers to transform themselves into a full-service business called the "funeral home" or "funeral parlors" and for housewives to no longer call the front room of their homes "parlor" which was still associated with the dead. It is the "Journal" which is responsible for you having a "living" room in your home. 

2. At 10:30 a.m., Summer intern Lenora Ellison will be leading the Benton Library's Pre-school Story Time, a 45-minute program geared toward children between 3 and 5. It features a variety of stories, as well as music, finger plays and/or a craft. Parents and caregivers must remain with their preschooler during the program. Sign up is not required. 

3. "Connections: A Tribute to Paula Lerner," in which last school year's Belmont High School honor's photography class paid tribute to the late Belmont photographer, can be seen at the Belmont Media Center, 9 Lexington St. in Waverley Square until this Friday, Aug. 23. Some of the photos are for sale for $100 with half of the purchase price donated to fight breast cancer. 

4. There will be roadway reconstruction by the town on Grant Avenue today.

5. Happy 65th Birthday to Robert Plant, the lead singer for Led Zeppelin, who was born on this day in West Bromwich, England. Also on this day in 1882, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture was debut in Moscow.